Kevin's Watch

What was it about the marrowmeld (misspelled) sculpture that taught Lord morhm (also missspelled) the secret of power. I remember Covenent thought she had sculpted Bannor and she had meant to do him.

Bannor and Covenant at that point represent diametrically opposing ends of a spectrum of inflexibility. Within inflexibility is the matrix for despair. Kevin's rigid belief that no other solution was possible led to his despair. Covenant's refusal to believe in the land carries the seeds to sow despair. Bannor's adherence to the Bloodguard way and Vow also carries the seeds for despair. That's my guess anyway.

Welcome, Matt!

How far along are you in reading the Chronicles, before I answer. I wouldn't want to give anything away.

Whoops, I am such a dork that I have a tendency to think EVERYONE has read these books!!!!

read the whole thing 3 times and the new book.


www.battle.net/war3/ladder/W3XP-player- ... ame=bannor

From SRD's website:

Jon-Ross Mallon: ....My question is about the marrowmeld that Elena made for Convenant, could you elaborate on the symbolism of the cross between Covenant and Bannor in the marrowmeld?

SRD: "Think of it as the sort of cryptic warning you get from an oracle. The warning to Bannor is fairly straightforward. Look at what happens to Korik, Sill, and Doar in "The Power that Preserves." The warning to Covenant is more subtle. Elena's sculpture hints at the danger for Covenant in the moral absolutism/purity of the Bloodguard."


Mhoram ascertains the paradox ("You ARE the White Gold") when he understands the implications of moral absolutism and purity!

Welcome!

mattbuma wrote:read the whole thing 3 times and the new book.

Cool. I don't have the book in front of me, so I'm working from memory, but...

In TPTP, Mhoram is talking with Quann about the marrowmeld sculpture. The gist of the meaning of it is that both Bannor and Covenant require absolute certainty about their lives. For Bannor, its the reality of the vow. For Covenant, it's that the Land is not real.[/i]

cool so your saying that the sculpture was a warning to both that they need to find a middle ground. So I understand the warning but it would seem that the same warning taught Morham that he needed to use his passion to access earthpower?

and thankyou all for your welcomes

Welcome to the watch, Matt!

There is a thread about this, and I remember talking quite a bit about it.

The marrowmeld was given to Mhoram by Bannor, who was quite 'prolixious' about it and what it symbolized, which has been posted here. To extend that, Mhoram realized that the Oath of Peace was crippling the Lords in the guise of safety.

They wanted to make certain that the RoD could never be repeated. In doing so, they ensured the new lords could never gain the power of the old lords. This was why they had so much trouble in making progress with the Wards. Mhoram realized that if you want to win it all, you have to risk it all.

So the RoD was dangerous, but it also allowed for great victory. Mhoram eschewed the Oath of Peace and was

Spoiler

then able to gain his victory over SatansHeart at the gates of Revelstone.

I Love that part!

I think this is the definitive answer, Matt, from the author himself.

In the Gradual Interview was wrote:Bill Foley

Just finished re-reading the 1st Chronicles as an appetizer to Runes and my head is abuzz...

I'm hoping that you might be willing to bring into sharper focus the revelation that High Lord Mhoram has leading into the Power that Preserves that enables him to unlock his additional power (knowledge of the Ritual of Desecration, blue flicker in the Krill, etc.).

I understand that his "secret" deals with overcoming the limits imposed by the Oath of Peace but I seem to want to understand it a little bit more literally. Is it that power requires a willingness to harm, hate or do violence? Something like that? (Again, looking for a "tune-up" here...)

I'm also interested to know how the inspiration for his understanding was found in Elena's Marrowmeld sculpture of Covenant/Bannor. In what way didthis trigger his understanding?

Thanks!

• I can't actually tell you how Mhoram's imagination/insight works: hell, I don't know how *mine* works. But I think I do know *what* he saw: the empowering paradox of passion and discipline.
  
  That's cryptic, I know. There's no good way to explain the potential hidden within paradoxes. But look at it this way. The Oath of Peace is, in effect, "modeled" on the Bloodguard. (I mean thematically, not literally.) The Bloodguard are all about emotional control: so is the Oath of Peace. Witness Atiaran's appeal to Triock when he wants to kill Covenant--and her own subsequent attitudes. Covenant, on the other hand, is all about passion (in this context, "passion" means "intense emotion"). Witness his rape of Lena, and the way he wears his emotions on his sleeve.
  
  Elena's marrowmeld sculpture put forward the notion that the control of the Bloodguard and the passion of Covenant are two faces of the same dilemma (the need of passion to be controlled, the need of control to be enlivened by passion); and that those two faces can be combined into one.
  
  From this, Mhoram extracted the understanding that the Oath of Peace has been, well, misapplied. It is literally a prescription for behavior; but it has been taken as a proscription against passion. Yet passion is power, as Covenant so often demonstrates. (And power is dangerous: therefore the Bloodguard knowingly, and the people of the Land unwittingly, have suppressed their access to it.) Mhoram learned to find his own version of "the eye of the paradox": the point where both passion and control can be affirmed.
  
  Mhoram's great insight most definitely does *not* involve "a willingness to harm, hate, or do violence." Rather it involves a willingness or ability to make choices which are not ruled or controlled by passion (e.g. hate, anger, despair, or fear), and then to act on those choices with absolute passion.
  
  Blake wrote, "Reason is the circumference of energy." Gichin Funakoshi wrote, "If your hand goes forth, withhold your anger. If your anger goes forth, withhold your hand." Someone (I've forgotten who) wrote, "Beauty is controlled passion." Mhoram learned to understand this. The fatal flaw of the Haruchai (and of Atiaran, and of Trell, and of Troy, and of the Unhomed, and of Kevin--and of Covenant early on) is that they did not.
  
  (11/24/2004)

It's similar to what I said only mine was the cliff note version....hahahahha

good stuff wayfriend

thanks

Wayfriend can always be counted on.

So the oath of peace limited their power because they controlled their passion, right?
I remember on my second or 3rd reading being confused when Verement shetra mate(?) stayed behind at dooms retreat and took on the raver. He gave a pretty cool speech

"Because you have killed Shetra my wife! Because I have been unworthy of her all my life! Because I do not fear you, raver! I am free of all restraint! No fear or love limits my strength! I will match you hate for hate, moksha raver! Melenkurion abatha!"

But for all that he didn't find the secret to power. oh well.

DW - thats a great passage. Verement despaired greatly, and acted through that despair. I think that SRD was saying that any act that comes from despair, like the RoD itself, is doomed.


IIRC - the Haruchai eased his passing before he was corrupted by the giant-raver with the Ill-Earth fragment.

Cameraman Jenn wrote:Bannor and Covenant at that point represent diametrically opposing ends of a spectrum of inflexibility. Within inflexibility is the matrix for despair. Kevin's rigid belief that no other solution was possible led to his despair. Covenant's refusal to believe in the land carries the seeds to sow despair. Bannor's adherence to the Bloodguard way and Vow also carries the seeds for despair. That's my guess anyway.

that is always how i saw it as well.

One of the things that always intrigued me about this series is that even though TC and the Bloodguard are on opposite ends of a spectrum they are also very much alike. TC is taught that literally and physically there is no hope and that the only thing that will insure his survival is strict adherence to his rituals (VSE). The Bloodguard are held captive by their vow and the strictures it encompasses. The paradox of them both is that TC can't afford to believe or his whole world as he knows it will come undone and the Bloodguard can't afford NOT to believe or everything they sacrificed will be for naught and their whole world also come undone. I think that the melding that Elena produced that combined Covenant and Bannor represented that compromise was necessary for triumph and simultaneously showed that rigidity led to despair and the triumph of Lord Foul. Again another paradox. It takes a long time for TC and the Bloodguard to learn what Mormon knew by book 3. The Bloodguard didn't learn it until Brinn's sacrifice and TC suspected it but didn't take it to heart until Book 5 in my opinion.

Cameraman Jenn wrote:One of the things that always intrigued me about this series is that even though TC and the Bloodguard are on opposite ends of a spectrum they are also very much alike.

Yes. A lot of what made LFB and TIL enjoyable were the scenes between Covenant and Bannor; kinda like watching an irresistable force confront an immovable object. Covenant just HAD to knock Banner down, and the more he failed trying, the more he had to try.

DW: I agree that Verement could have found the secret of Desecration. I think he did not because his passion was not pure. Pure, in that he was too conflicted, he doubted himself, knew his emotions were mistaken for all that he could not dismiss them. Trell had reached the point where his passions ran strongly in one direction, there was no doubt in him that what he was doing was wrong.

Verement never reached the point where he wanted to descrate; he merely wanted to die. He never looked for that power, whereas both Trell and Mhoram sought it in order to find it. Verement, as a Lord, would never have considered desecration, and his despair never grew so severe that he considered it.

Verement never reached the point where he wanted to descrate; he merely wanted to die. He never looked for that power, whereas both Trell and Mhoram sought it in order to find it. Verement, as a Lord, would never have considered desecration, and his despair never grew so severe that he considered it.

Yes, and well said. Verement and Shetra's Tale is truly one of the touching tales in the first chrons.