The Rules of the Earth: 100 Questions

[wayfriend]

I have gone through the Runes dissections, and collected all of the significant unanswered questions that Donaldson has left for us.

Dissect. Add. Answer. Enjoy.

Prologue
1. What did Joan fail at?
2. Did Roger take Joan’s place in some form?
3. What does Roger refer to when he speaks of Joan “bearing it”?
4. Why can Roger so influence Joan’s condition?
5. Is there a significance to Roger’s attending medical school, or being a butcher?
6. Why did Roger want Haven Farm?
7. Is Roger possessed by a Raver?
8. What is the cause of Jeremiah’s ‘disorder’?
9. What is the significance of Jeremiah’s construction ability?
10. What is the significance of Jeremiah’s missing fingers?
11. What is the significance of the race track and the red race car?
12. Has Jeremiah been to or seen the Land prior to his summons?
13. How did Roger know so much about Jeremiah?
14. What did Sheriff Lytton do to Joan in the police car years ago?
15. Is Sheriff Lytton complicit in Foul’s plans?
16. Does Sherrif Lytton appear again in the story?
17. Is Sandy complicit in Foul’s plans?
18. Does Sandy appear again in the story?
19. Why does Roger take and then slaughter Sara Clint?
20. What happened in Haven Farm that bloodied the halls?
21. Who shot Linden Avery?
22. Why was Linden summoned to the Land?
23. How was Joan able to summon Linden?
24. Has the nature of summoning or of reality itself altered significantly?
25. Why did the old man not appear to Linden?

Part One
26. Was Linden mortally wounded when she was shot?
27. What do Linden’s visions as she is summoned mean, and who sent them?
28. Why is Joan possessed?
29. Why was Joan summoned to the Land?
30. Who summoned Joan?
31. Had Joan been to or seen the Land prior to her summons?
32. What does Joan’s real world death allow her to become?
33. Why is Roger in the Land?
34. What does Roger’s real world death allow him to become?
35. Whom does “Tell her that I have her son” refer to?
36. What is the significance of the parallelism between Joan and Linden?
37. What is the significance of the parallelism between Roger and Jeremiah (and Covenant)?
38. Why did a ceasure strike just as Linden was summoned?
39. What are the stars that are “set free by the severing of time”?
40. Why is Anele “mad”?
41. Why is Anele blind?
42. How had Anele continually eluded the Masters?
43. What were the ur-viles doing with Anele before Linden found him?
44. Did Caer Caveral have any influence on Anele?
45. Why is Anele the “Land’s last hope”?
46. What gave rise to Kevin’s Dirt?
47. What “subtle substance” does Kevin’s Dirt deprive people of?
48. What are the skurj, and what are they after?
49. How and why does Covenant speak to Linden in dreams?
50. Why does Covenant tell Linden to “never mind” about Jeremiah?
51. Why is the lurker of the Sarangrave growing restless?
52. What are the Elohim trying to warn the people of the Land about?
53. What are the croyel doing?
54. How did Kastenessen get free, and what is he after?
55. What happens to the people of the Land that a ceasure snatches away?
56. Which Half-Hand do the Elohim warn people against?
57. How do the Masters serve Foul?
58. What forces have been “set in motion which will shatter the Arch of Time”?
59. What is Foul’s deeper purpose, of which he will not speak?
60. Whom has Foul whispered to, and with what result?
61. What did the Elohim do, according to Foul, that would cause us to “feel despair”?
62. Why are the ur-viles trying to help Linden?
63. How is it that Covenant has a capability to possess Anele?
64. Why does someone “command” Anele not to speak of Kastenessen, Durance, skurj, and Elohim?
65. Why does Covenant ask Linden to “find me”?
66. Who is the fiery being that can possess Anele?
67. Who is/are Esmer’s master(s), and what are they after?
68. How did the Haruchai unleash “endless havoc” by fathering Esmer?
69. What Elohim guidance did Linden spurn which will cause much to be lost?

Part Two
70. What doom do the Ranyhyn fear Linden will bring forth?
71. Why does Esmer help Linden travel through time to retrieve the Staff?
72. Whose malice caused the storm while Esmer was away summoning a ceasure?
73. Why does Covenant say, “Just be wary of me. Remember that I’m dead.”
74. Why is Joan delivering blows to the Arch of Time and causing ceasures?
75. Why are Joan’s blows to the Arch of Time not rousing the Worm of the World’s End?
76. Why are there skest on the broken wall in Linden’s ceasure vision?
77. Why did the wild magic turn black in the ceasure?
78. What does it mean if Esmer can travel through time at will?
79. How do Haruchai and Ramen know so much about lore and time travel?
80. How is it that Esmer can “block” access to the wild magic?
81. How is the new Staff of Law different from the original?
82. Why did finding the Staff not help Anele?
83. What are the Demondim after?
84. What is Esmer’s relationship with the Demondim?
85. What is the fiery possessor’s relationship with the Demondim?
86. What is the significance of Linden learning where to find Jeremiah?
87. Why does the type of ground alter Anele’s madness?
88. Why are both Lord Foul and Covenant able to possess Anele on grass?
89. Does health-sense, or a lack of it, really explain the can/cannot of Linden’s ring?
90. Can Good ever be accomplished by evil means?
91. Whom does the stone know “betrayed” Covenant?
92. Who is the Mahdoubt, and what is she after?
93. Will the Haruchai finally discover a better answer for their passion?
94. Why is “Find” emphasized in the title of the last chapter?
95. What “peril and pain” await Linden?
96. Why must Linden “be cautious of Love”?
97. Is that really Covenant riding up to Revelstone?
98. Is that really Jeremiah riding up to Revelstone?
99. Why do the Haruchai call Covenant a stranger?
100. Why is Jeremiah “excited” as he rides up to Revelstone?

[dlbpharmd]

Great idea for a thread......

13. How did Roger know so much about Jeremiah?

didn't he get his info from Megan Roman?

[lucimay]

oh man this will be a GREAT thread!!!! thanks Way!!!

man...yer gonna make me wanna read runes again. ARG!

[dlbpharmd]

35. Whom does “Tell her that I have her son” refer to?

I say this refers to Joan, not Linden.

[Cameraman Jenn]

AUGH AUGH AUGH! I shouldn't have read this..........

[dlbpharmd]

75. Why are Joan’s blows to the Arch of Time not rousing the Worm of the World’s End?

Joan is Foul's tool - she has access to wild magic through her wedding ring, but since she's under Foul's control she can't raise enough power to threaten the Arch.

[Relayer]

Wayfriend, great work putting this all together!

Great idea for a thread......

13. How did Roger know so much about Jeremiah?

didn't he get his info from Megan Roman?

I thought he just checked the internet
I agree, Megan told him. But I suspect Roger already knew because Foul or a Raver probably told him lots of things...

19. Why does Roger take and then slaughter Sara Clint?
Because he can. (probably so SRD can demonstrate how evil Roger is)

20. What happened in Haven Farm that bloodied the halls?
Wasn't this from TWL, when the Community butchered the cow?

And I have another question...

101. Who is the leader of the Community of Retribution?

[Aleksandr]

Re: 32. What does Joan’s real world death allow her to become?

and: 34. What does Roger’s real world death allow him to become?

They'll be people who will never be able go to back to their real world. After all, Hile Troy didn't become anything special by dint of his real world death.

Re: 75. Why are Joan’s blows to the Arch of Time not rousing the Worm of the World’s End?

She is not in the Worm's presence (the Worm is somehow bound to the One Tree). Remember, Foul evoked catastrophic power ("Enough to leave the One Tree itself in ash and cinders") from the Ring in his attack on Covenant's shade at the end of WGW with no trace of the Worm awakening.

[A Gunslinger]

Great thread!

How do we handle them all?

[Avatar]

Awesome thread WayFriend.

--A

[dlbpharmd]

She is not in the Worm's presence (the Worm is somehow bound to the One Tree). Remember, Foul evoked catastrophic power ("Enough to leave the One Tree itself in ash and cinders") from the Ring in his attack on Covenant's shade at the end of WGW with no trace of the Worm awakening.

Because Covenant stood between Foul and the Arch and absorbed all of the power that Foul threw at him.

[High Lord Tolkien]

She is not in the Worm's presence (the Worm is somehow bound to the One Tree). Remember, Foul evoked catastrophic power ("Enough to leave the One Tree itself in ash and cinders") from the Ring in his attack on Covenant's shade at the end of WGW with no trace of the Worm awakening.

Because Covenant stood between Foul and the Arch and absorbed all of the power that Foul threw at him.

Also TC was destroying the stars that were released to protect the One Tree.
I always felt that that was what was rousing the Worm since it was "sleeping off" it's initial feast of them.
So the fewer the stars the quicker the Worm would rouse.

[dlbpharmd]

Was that really the same stars, or just a defensive mechanism of the One Tree?

[High Lord Tolkien]

Was that really the same stars, or just a defensive mechanism of the One Tree?

I don't know. I got the impression that they were insanely powerful motes of light.

[Avatar]

Was that really the same stars, or just a defensive mechanism of the One Tree?

Yeah, that was the impression I got. They were sorta like the One Tree's version of the Grim.

--A

[wayfriend]

I'm glad you like my thread.

One point I want to make is that Runes leaves you with so many unanswered questions, it borders on annoying. It's really not like any other book Donaldson has written.

In TWL, we had the mysteries of the Sunbane and the Clave. But before we got to Coercri most of the mysteries were explained - we knew the Clave served Foul and we knew the Sunbane was permitted by the loss of the Staff and Covenant knew what his quest was.

He's compared the set-up to the Gap cycle, in terms of being a set-up. But do RS and FK leave us with so many dangling references to unanswered questions? I didn't find it so. Yes, there were lots of references to things off-stage, like Dios and the Council, but these come across as the usual world-building you see in any story - making it seem as if the characters and actions occur in a fleshed out universe. But I didn't feel like I was missing all this information. Whereas in Runes, we know the universe already; rather we are hit in the head with unsolved riddles left and right that we just know we need to know.

Runes leaves us with no direction. The quest through the whole book was to save Jeremiah (with the quest for the Staff being a necessary side trip). But Jeremiah is handed to Linden before she can even begin to go and retrieve him. So .... what is the threat to the Land? How is Foul trying to defeat Covenant? What do Linden and Jeremiah and Covenant need to try to do? We have no answers to any of these things. So, in a sense, we have no idea what direction the story will go in.

And if there's no focus and no direction, there's no dramatic tension. There's no nailbitten pondering about how Linden will be able to XYX, and no excited wondering of how Covenant will be able to stop PDQ and defeat ABC.

So... hundreds of questions... and no clue as to the direction the story will take.

Rather unsatisfying. I am clinging to my trust in the author on this one.

What I do have to admit to is that I am curious about a lot of character-driven things. What will Linden's and Covenant's reunion be like? Ditto Linden and Jeremiah's. Sort of like watching your favorite soap opera and deliciously anticipating how so-and-so will react when he hear's what so-and-so did.

But that's not as good.

[tonyz]

The basic tension of the book is Linden's willingness to commit Desecration to save her son, to cling to her vision of the right thing even when everyone around her knows it's wrong. And there are a lot of clues that she's on morally questionable ground (like her repeated promises to do things which she cannot reasonably hope to fulfill, like keeping Anele safe from whatever is chasing him... which she fails at.)

(There's no real reason at all for her to refuse to give Joan into Roger's custody, which is another variation on the theme. In which case she's right, but is she right on the larger picture?)

This isn't a book about a quest: it's a book about Linden and whether or not she's right.

[emotional leper]

14. What did Sheriff Lytton do to Joan in the police car years ago?

This was revealed. Lytton told Linden what he did. He shoved Joan in the back of the police car, called her a leper, and said he didn't want to catch it, and that she probably already had it. That was what happened to cause her catatonia, presumably. Why it caused it, exactly, no clue, but he did end up telling Linden what happened.

Spoiler tag, because, well... Some people haven't read Runes? [not necessary - mod]

[Zarathustra]

It's amazing that the unanswered questions come to a nice, round number like "100." Surely there's something mystical and significant about this coincidence.

Good thread, Wayfriend. Nice way to wrap up the dissection.

[Zarathustra]

Runes leaves us with no direction. The quest through the whole book was to save Jeremiah (with the quest for the Staff being a necessary side trip). But Jeremiah is handed to Linden before she can even begin to go and retrieve him. So .... what is the threat to the Land? How is Foul trying to defeat Covenant? What do Linden and Jeremiah and Covenant need to try to do? We have no answers to any of these things. So, in a sense, we have no idea what direction the story will go in.

And if there's no focus and no direction, there's no dramatic tension. There's no nailbitten pondering about how Linden will be able to XYX, and no excited wondering of how Covenant will be able to stop PDQ and defeat ABC.

So... hundreds of questions... and no clue as to the direction the story will take.

Rather unsatisfying. I am clinging to my trust in the author on this one.

I agree that this is unsatisfying. But, like you, I trust this author. He has to know that the last chapter removes the driving tension of the entire book. How can Linden's quest for her son endanger the Land if her son rides up at the end? All of a sudden, there's no danger of her risking the Arch to find her son. Maybe the damage has already been done . . .?

Also, it must be significant that Donaldson repeats the "Find me," thing in the very chapter where that becomes unnecessary.

I think we'll find that she still needs to "find" Covenant even after he arrives. Undoubtedly, we must conclude that both rescuing Jeremiah and finding Covenant were not what we thought they were. These tasks are something different entirely.

[Edit: I see in the "Find me" thread that you were thinking similarly.]