Anele - help me please!

[kevinswatch]

What if Anele had a late life crisis, and decided to start a string of hit Broadway musicals in Revelstone, forever changing the way the Land experiences theater. -jay(But yeah, I see your point. Like I said, I'm content for now.)

[Zarathustra]

I'm reminded of the Austin Powers movie in which Basil suggests to Austin that he not worry too much about time paradox and just enjoy himself . . . and then looks at the camera with a sly smile and suggests the same thing for the viewers.

[Relayer]

I wonder if "Messing around with time always creates enormous narrative problems (at least in storytelling: I haven't tried it in real life <grin>). The contradiction you've pointed out will be addressed in some detail in "Fatal Revenant" is another way of saying "Oops..."
Steve

I doubt it...

Though I don't quite understand the contradictions... at one point Stave and Linden discuss the fact that the Haruchai would have noticed any use of the Staff of Law (or other powers) during the past 3000 years. Hence I find it hard to think they would not have noticed a caesure somewhere during that time.

I think another point of confusion is the differences between the caesure itself (created in the last 90 years, and exists in the "present") and the flow of time within the caesure. This flow also moves "forward" but is of a different nature than that of the external viewpoint of the caesure moving across the land. I'm not entirely satisfied w/ SRD's explanations either, but I also agree with Wayfriend that we can't try to apply logic to this. I trust SRD has something up his sleeve that'll make sense when it's all been revealed.

But on the other end, they are so scattered that it's likely no one notices them. In fact, it's likely that Anele is the first person in history to have noticed one. While this highly unlikely event is extremely fortuitous for story telling purposes, we shouldn't think anything strange is going on . . . becuase this is fantasy.

This does make sense, and SRD has essentially said this ("if you aren't in the right place at the right time..."). But I still find it extremely fortuitious that Anele is the only person who ever sees one... In fact, I think I have argued elsewhere that this is not a coincidence. We already know of one being who is able to control caesures. Could there be a reason that Esmer (who also can apparently time travel) knows that Anele is needed in the "Runes-future"? And is this reason for good or evil?

And I am definately NOT a 'Servant of the Land'. I just liked the books.
How do I get rid of that?

You must submit to the Land's Servitude until you have posted 50 times. You must slice your palms to obtain blood and use the Sunstone each of these times. Then you can edit that field in your profile. Of course, at that time (50 posts) you will also by default become a Ramen.

btw... if you are not a Servant of the Land, whom do you serve? Foul? Or perhaps the Elohim? The Haruchai will want to question you

[kevinswatch]

^It's only 5 posts now to change your rank.-jay

[Nerdanel]

I can sort of comphrehend how a caesure works. I think even if it has the potential to be everywhere at once and can be directed to go anywhere, it actually will be only in one place at one time as an actuality, and since a caesure will grow bigger as it eats the fabric of reality, caesures in the past were far smaller than in the present.

I've been thinking about caesures and am of the opinion that there are several cases of them in the earlier books, so it isn't only Anele that ever met one. However as I'm strapped for time at the moment, I'll have to get back to this point later.

[The Laughing Man]

I was thinking the same kinda things, Nerdanel, white gold being the key ingredient for a caesure and all....

maybe a caesure is a hole punched in the side of the "tube of time", not the starting or ending point of the tube itself.....that it is flowing internally in one direction doesn't contradict the points in time that the ends of the tube intersects, and allows one to travel "against the flow", as it were.....

[I'm Murrin]

I've been thinking about caesures and am of the opinion that there are several cases of them in the earlier books, so it isn't only Anele that ever met one. However as I'm strapped for time at the moment, I'll have to get back to this point later.

I can't see that as possible. On the outside view, SRD only though of the idea of caesures a few years before he started writing Runes, but that fact's not relevant. Internally, then, it comes back to the absolutes of past and present. The caesures have only existed for about 100 years, therefore there cannot have been one in the earlier books. Even if we find in the Last Chrons that one opens at a time when Covenant was in the Land in an earlier book, it still wasn't there at the time of the earlier book, because it hadn't been created yet.
The caesures might connect to the past, but we're dealing with a very linear view of time, still. The caesures only affect the past after a particular time--the time Joan started making them. Time hadn't gained its new flaws before that.
Paradoxes--don't you just love em? Perhaps its better to map the model to the real world's time stream, where there are no paradoxes. The caesures began at a certain point in real-world time, and could not have existed before that point. The Land's time stream is flawed after that point, and so cannot be relied on. Anything that happened earlier in real-world time--such as the previous books in the series--is completely unaffected by the time flaws.

[The Laughing Man]

do any of us know what the potential "side effects" of using the white gold may have had at any point in the earlier chronicles?

[lucimay]

Oh well, his books deal with paradox and existentialism. So maybe there's a bit of postmodernism in his work after all.

nope. there isn't. he's just playing with the concepts of paradoxs and existentialism. he hasn't done anything postmodern with the structure or the telling of the story as far as i can see.

what do you think is postmodern about it?

[Nerdanel]

I've been thinking about caesures and am of the opinion that there are several cases of them in the earlier books, so it isn't only Anele that ever met one. However as I'm strapped for time at the moment, I'll have to get back to this point later.

I can't see that as possible. On the outside view, SRD only though of the idea of caesures a few years before he started writing Runes, but that fact's not relevant. Internally, then, it comes back to the absolutes of past and present. The caesures have only existed for about 100 years, therefore there cannot have been one in the earlier books. Even if we find in the Last Chrons that one opens at a time when Covenant was in the Land in an earlier book, it still wasn't there at the time of the earlier book, because it hadn't been created yet.
The caesures might connect to the past, but we're dealing with a very linear view of time, still. The caesures only affect the past after a particular time--the time Joan started making them. Time hadn't gained its new flaws before that.
Paradoxes--don't you just love em? Perhaps its better to map the model to the real world's time stream, where there are no paradoxes. The caesures began at a certain point in real-world time, and could not have existed before that point. The Land's time stream is flawed after that point, and so cannot be relied on. Anything that happened earlier in real-world time--such as the previous books in the series--is completely unaffected by the time flaws.

The example of Anele alone is sufficient evidence that we can have caesures, even caesures that are observable somehow, before any caesures were made. I think there are things in the earlier Chronicles that originally weren't particularly explained and have now been defined/retconned to be caesures. I'll get back to this...

[Tulizar]

So basically, SRD can do whatever he wants to do and if any of us see contradictions he has a fullproof rebuttal: "it doesn't have to make sense . . . because I say so."

It's ok as long as he consistantly doesn't make sense!



After reading RotE I wasn't satisfied with the use of time travel or its origins. The explanation in the book is certainly confusing, and I wasn't pleased that this plot device was even used. But I'm willing to give SRD the benefit of the doubt since he tends to write on a grand scale. Hopefully his explanation of the caesures and time travel will make sense.

Hell, I guess since this is SRD's creation, he can untangle the mysteries time travel as he sees fit, as long as it is consitantly applied throughout the series.

[I'm Murrin]

The example of Anele alone is sufficient evidence that we can have caesures, even caesures that are observable somehow, before any caesures were made. I think there are things in the earlier Chronicles that originally weren't particularly explained and have now been defined/retconned to be caesures. I'll get back to this...

You've missed my point, I think. The way I see it, there would be no retconning--very literally, the caesures would not exist in the earlier novels. Anele was picked up by a caesure sometime in the last 90 years, land-time--but because of the breakdown of Time, it happened ~3300 years ago as well. I see the timeline as still completely linear, it's just no longer consistent. So, since the earlier novels took place 3500 and 7000 years earlier (10 and 20 years earlier), there were no caesures--they simply didn't exist yet.
I believe the caesures are a flaw which connects the present to the past, not the past to the present. If that makes any sense.

You seem to be taking another view: that when a caesure is in the past, it is literally in the past. I do not think that is right--it seems possible, from the way they sem to work, that caesures are always in the present, whenever they appear.


(Y'know, this discussion is the first time I've gotten my own image of the caesures this fully worked out. Suddenly, I've got this thing about the linearity of the timeline, and now everything seems consistent and logical...)

[kevinswatch]

While your post makes sense, I think you could easily rationalize it another way (so it's hard to say you're right).

You're assuming a lot about how time works.

Although I can logically accept the theory that time before the Laws were screwed around with should be safe.

I'm still just not sold the rest of this timeline stuff.

Also, I forgot, but did the caesures bring back the Illearth stone or did the Viles/Demondim/Whatever they were?-jay

[I'm Murrin]

The Demondim used a caesure to access the power of the Illearth Stone.

(and I've edited my post. Wrong of me to phrase it the way I did--I sounded as if I thought I had the only valid view; of course that is wrong.)

[The Laughing Man]

wow. some thought provoking posts there, I must say....

[wayfriend]

Well, now I have to confuse Esmer more.

It occurs to me to remember one other thing: Time is Broken.

Caesures cause Time to stop doing what it is supposed to do, which is impose linearity and thereby causality on the material world. Having "all times at once" is broken. Travelling in time is broken. The Arch of Time - the Creator's framework of laws and rules which allows the Earth to exist - is breaking.

So if Time is not working properly, and the laws of physics are cracking, any conclusions we draw that include preconceptions about what time travel implies are flawed.

Time is broken - unhealthy - injured - diseased. What exactly is going on we don't know yet. So we are in the position of Dr. House trying to diagnose this illness. We have a set of facts which don't make sense until we finally discover the nature of the underlying illness. Then we all go "Aha!".

[A Gunslinger]

Well, now I have to confuse Esmer more.

It occurs to me to remember one other thing: Time is Broken.

Caesures cause Time to stop doing what it is supposed to do, which is impose linearity and thereby causality on the material world. Having "all times at once" is broken. Travelling in time is broken. The Arch of Time - the Creator's framework of laws and rules which allows the Earth to exist - is breaking.

So if Time is not working properly, and the laws of physics are cracking, any conclusions we draw that include preconceptions about what time travel implies are flawed.

Time is broken - unhealthy - injured - diseased. What exactly is going on we don't know yet. So we are in the position of Dr. House trying to diagnose this illness. We have a set of facts which don't make sense until we finally discover the nature of the underlying illness. Then we all go "Aha!".

We know that the Caesures ARE being created by Joan's self abuse...that the health of the land and the health of Joan are somehow intertwined...we have known this since the 2nd chronicles ("something broken" ...both joan and the land crave blood to reach equalibrium).

I beleive that the Caesures themselves are the affront to the Law of Time..thet thye are what broke it. I mean that since they caused Anele to be removed from his own time along with the Staff...actions which must have already created repurcussions we don't yet realize that have or CAN alter the fabric of reality.

Am I daft?

[The Laughing Man]

I see them more of a twisting, or contorting of time, and see no problems with the linearity issue. That they exist at a point in space, in all points of time does not to me equal broken. Manipulated or exploited, altho violently, yes, but not severed or torn in any way. They are just windows or doors in space that always exist for as long as where they exist has been in existence.

Each of those broken pieces of stone represents a moment or moments of the Land's past. (How was the cliff shattered in the first place? Presumably by the breaking of the Laws of Death and Life.) They do NOT represent moments in Joan's present. So when she destroys one of those pieces of rubble, she is creating a "ceasure" in that specific moment of the Land's past. Could be a hundred years before her present. Could be 3500 years before her present.

But--since I insist on thinking of time as linear--all of them *must* represent moments prior to her present rather than after her present

[ParanoiA]

I'm not done with the book yet, I'm on 10 - Aided by Ur-viles. But I wondered if anyone noticed something that may or may not mean squat - that Anele's name backwards is Elena. Significance or incidental?

I apologize if this has already been covered.

[Relayer]

Welcome to the Watch!!

Yep, it's been covered, even asked to SRD in his Gradual Interview (it's on his website if you haven't seen it). He says he didn't even notice until someone pointed it out to him.