"Mother of All Spoilers . . . "

[thewormoftheworld'send]

Remember that this is the creator we are talking about and just because he is the creator doesnt mean that he wont do things that dont seem altruistic on the surface.

I think it's a stretch to call it altruism. The Creator did not give Covenant anything he didn't already have.

"Then take peace in your other innocence," said a voice out of the darkness. "You did not choose this task. You did not undertake it of your own free will. It was thrust upon you. Blame belongs to the chooser, and this choice was made by one who elected you without your knowledge or consent."

And he gives those chosen the power of choice:

"Ah, but you were-free of my suasion, my power, my wish to make you my tool. Have I not said that the risk was great? Choiceless, you were given the power of choice. I elected you for the Land but did not compel you to serve my purpose in the Land. You were free to damn Land and Earth and Time and all, if you chose. Only through such a risk could I hope to preserve the rectitude of my creation."

[SoulBiter]

Thats exactly what I was getting at.... the creator doesnt necessarily have to 'seem' altruistic on the surface... while at the same time his motives could be.

In what I posted you can see that he is telling TC that he chose him without his knowledge or consent but that he also gave him the choice

to damn Land and Earth and Time and all, if you chose

Linden is in the same position right now.... choiceless she has been given the freedom of choice... but I think Z might be on to something.. because she already made her choice and has been consistant about it the whole time.

[Vraith]

Welllll....I think altruism is right out.
There's a difference between "I'll sacrifice myself for..."
and "I'll sacrifice myself because the whole thing is my fault."
The only way it can be altruism is if he knew, before trapping LF, that it would come to this and something grand might come out of it that he was willing to die for. [it's still not altruistic then, unless all the tortured/killed ones get purpose/meaning/salvation, or at least a do-over]

[SoulBiter]

How do you figure?


#Unselfish concern for the welfare of others


# Regard for others, both natural and moral; devotion to the interests of others; brotherly kindness;

In all of the above.. the creator could have the best interests of everyone at heart...but knows that some sacrifices are necessary to get there. And keep in mind... he could just start over... so I would say going through this effort is selfless from a creators point of view.

[Vraith]

Taking responsibility/paying the price for your actions is not altruistic.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

Thats exactly what I was getting at.... the creator doesnt necessarily have to 'seem' altruistic on the surface... while at the same time his motives could be.

In what I posted you can see that he is telling TC that he chose him without his knowledge or consent but that he also gave him the choice

to damn Land and Earth and Time and all, if you chose

Linden is in the same position right now.... choiceless she has been given the freedom of choice... but I think Z might be on to something.. because she already made her choice and has been consistant about it the whole time.

Nobody chooses to be born either. Is there a significant difference? Born choiceless, we are given the power to choose.

What you are describing as the Creator's m.o. is real, I'm not questioning that. I simply don't see it as altruism. Perhaps seeing it that way doesn't hurt anything. One could argue, for example, that Covenant tried to give the old man his ring; so the old man gave Covenant something in return, freedom to save or damn the Earth.

On the other hand, I can't accept such simple terms. We are assuming that the Creator himself had a real choice in the matter as far as Covenant's freedom was concerned. For if the Creator had bereft Covenant of choice, coercing him to save the Earth, then it would be the same as if the Creator himself had visited the Land. Covenant would be the Creator in proxy. In that sense, it would still be a violation of Time itself.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

How do you figure?


#Unselfish concern for the welfare of others


# Regard for others, both natural and moral; devotion to the interests of others; brotherly kindness;

In all of the above.. the creator could have the best interests of everyone at heart...but knows that some sacrifices are necessary to get there. And keep in mind... he could just start over... so I would say going through this effort is selfless from a creators point of view.

Not at all. The Creator is very selfish about preserving his Creation.

[SoulBiter]

Selfish? I dont agree but its only my POV....


If he was being selfish he would have just made another world and turned his back on this one. Instead he saw that there was something worth preserving... not for himself.. he cannot as much as put his hand through the arch of time without destroying the land.. the effort of sending people from our world to the land as hero's is not selfish but selfless.

From TPTP...the creator talking

"If he cannot bear the world he has made he can make another"

Also he said that he risked much by sending TC with the White Gold to the land to try to preserve his creation.

"Sure? Ah, no. There was great hazard - risk for the workd which I made - risk even for me. Had my enemy gainded the white wild magic gold, he would have unloosed himself from the Earth - destroyed it so that he might hurl himself against me.

The bold shows the atruism of him trying to preserve this world.. he could have just left it as a prison for LF forever. Instead he risked LF getting free in hopes that TC would be able to complete his task.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

Selfish? I dont agree but its only my POV....


If he was being selfish he would have just made another world and turned his back on this one. Instead he saw that there was something worth preserving... not for himself.. he cannot as much as put his hand through the arch of time without destroying the land.. the effort of sending people from our world to the land as hero's is not selfish but selfless.

From TPTP...the creator talking

"If he cannot bear the world he has made he can make another"

Was the Creator talking about himself in the third person? No, he was talking in general about why creators of worlds don't despair - they are both too powerful and too powerless.

Also he said that he risked much by sending TC with the White Gold to the land to try to preserve his creation.

"Sure? Ah, no. There was great hazard - risk for the workd which I made - risk even for me. Had my enemy gainded the white wild magic gold, he would have unloosed himself from the Earth - destroyed it so that he might hurl himself against me.

The bold shows the atruism of him trying to preserve this world.. he could have just left it as a prison for LF forever. Instead he risked LF getting free in hopes that TC would be able to complete his task.

You've changed beneficiaries. First you said it was Covenant who benefited from the creator's altruism, now it seems to be the Land itself.

Risking oneself is not altruism. Giving of oneself without asking anything in return is altruism.

[SoulBiter]

I didnt change beneficiaries...... I made a statement that the creators motives dont have to 'seem' altruistic on the surface but then the only support I have for that statement are the few sentences where he has actually been shown speaking in the books.

But thats neither here nor there. In my opinion if you do something that you dont really have to do..... and the benefit is for others... then its altruistic. There really seems no benefit to the creator doing everything he is doing when he can just start over again and this time not have the despiser in the new world. But I can see your POV as well... that maybe his motives are to save the world that he made for himself... I just dont agree that this is his primary motive.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

I didnt change beneficiaries...... I made a statement that the creators motives dont have to 'seem' altruistic on the surface but then the only support I have for that statement are the few sentences where he has actually been shown speaking in the books.

But thats neither here nor there. In my opinion if you do something that you dont really have to do..... and the benefit is for others... then its altruistic. There really seems no benefit to the creator doing everything he is doing when he can just start over again and this time not have the despiser in the new world. But I can see your POV as well... that maybe his motives are to save the world that he made for himself... I just dont agree that this is his primary motive.

I quoted this passage today on another thread and mentioned it before recently:

Lord Mhoram -

"Yet even this you must understand. He [the Creator] cannot touch you here, to teach or help you, for the same reason that he cannot help us. Nor can he touch or teach or help you in your own world. If he does, you will not be free. You will become his tool, and your presence will break the arch of Time, unbinding Despite. So you were chosen. The Creator believes that your uncoerced volition and strength will save us in the end. If he is wrong, he has put the weapon of his own destruction into Lord Foul's hands."

In the same conversation between Covenant and Mhoram, Covenant ponders why the Creator doesn't just burn down his creation and start again:

Covenant -

"He could burn the place down, and try again. But I guess you don't think gods are that humble. Or do you call it arrogance-to burn-?"

Is the Creator not humble enough? Or simply too arrogant? No matter. What makes us think it is that easy?

His books had seemed to him so blind and complacent, so destructive of himself, that he had burned them and given up writing.
But now, watching that fire in dreams, he felt for the first time the grief and outrage of seeing his handiwork destroyed.

Burning his own books seemed easy to Covenant at the time, but later he paid an emotional price for his action: grief and outrage. Sure, he could write other books. But those are HIS books. And the Earth is the Creator's creation. Creators are fundamentally selfish about their creations. Now imagine burning down an entire planet full of living beings and not just words on dead paper.

[Zarathustra]

Nobody chooses to be born either. Is there a significant difference? Born choiceless, we are given the power to choose.

That's the central problematic, right there, for all of us. And it is the central problematic, I think, for these characters wrestling with an existential crisis. The journey to the Land is just a symbol of that. We only really have freedom over the opposite choice: whether to stop our existence. The first question of philosophy. We can't choose to be here, nor can we choose to not end, but we do have power over what kind of end we have, and how we live up until then.

We can choose to fight against the "evil" while we're here (1st Chrons), or we can choose to make use of our inevitible passing by letting it be of service against "evil" (2nd Chrons self-sacrifice ... distinct from suicide), or we can ... what? That's the end of the 3rd Chronicles if we can answer that question.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

Nobody chooses to be born either. Is there a significant difference? Born choiceless, we are given the power to choose.

That's the central problematic, right there, for all of us. And it is the central problematic, I think, for these characters wrestling with an existential crisis. The journey to the Land is just a symbol of that. We only really have freedom over the opposite choice: whether to stop our existence. The first question of philosophy. We can't choose to be here, nor can we choose to not end, but we do have power over what kind of end we have, and how we live up until then.

We can choose to fight against the "evil" while we're here (1st Chrons), or we can choose to make use of our inevitible passing by letting it be of service against "evil" (2nd Chrons self-sacrifice ... distinct from suicide), or we can ... what? That's the end of the 3rd Chronicles if we can answer that question.

Whether it is the first problem of philosophy (the problem of universals?) or the last, Donaldson makes use of it pragmatically. At first I thought there was something philosophical in the Creator's decision not to influence Covenant's will. Then I thought it might have to do with not breaking the Arch. I found a quote from Mhoram to that effect.

[Zarathustra]

We only really have freedom over the opposite choice: whether to stop our existence. The first question of philosophy.

Whether it is the first problem of philosophy (the problem of universals?) or the last, Donaldson makes use of it pragmatically.

I was speaking of how Camus (French existentialist) claimed that the first question of philosophy was, "Why not suicide?"

Albert Camus saw the goal of absurdism in establishing whether suicide was necessary in a world without God. For Camus, suicide was the rejection of freedom. He thinks that fleeing from the absurdity of reality into illusions, religion or death is not the way out. Instead of fleeing the absurd meaninglessness of life, we should embrace life passionately.

At first I thought there was something philosophical in the Creator's decision not to influence Covenant's will. Then I thought it might have to do with not breaking the Arch. I found a quote from Mhoram to that effect.

Sure it has a lot to do with not breaking the Arch. But that's the narrative reason; the symbolic reason. The Arch is like the barrier between the symbolic and the literal. If the Creator is part of Covenant (symbolically), then it wouldn't really be an issue for the creative part of his own mind to "control" the rest of him. It's still him; still Thomas Covenant. Indeed, I think the whole point of all this is a man working out which side (his creative or his destructive) will control his actions. Passions (wild magic) can go in either direction. The answer isn't to limit the passions (Oath of Peace), but to use the passions creatively rather than destructively. Making this choice requires reason (Law). Passion controlled by reason. But that control is merely self-control. It's still compatible with freewill.

I think the issue of not breaking the Arch has more to do with not blurring the symbolic lines. If the Land is where our internal battles are externalized, where we meet our own inner Despiser as a foe, then it would be merely redundant to also meet our own inner Creator in the Land. In the battle with our own inner Despiser, we don't simply become rescued by our own inner Creator--rather, we become our own Creator. We rescue ourselves. I think that's the main (symbolic/narrative) reason why the Creator can't enter his own creation. In a sense, that's exactly what he's hoping Covenant will do.

You mentioned a suspicion of "something philosophical in the Creator's decision not to influence Covenant's will." I think you are right to suspect something here. Deciding to allow your own inner Creator to dominate your own inner Destructor *is* an act of freewill. It is impossible for the Creator (as a separate character) to control TC's will because TC is the Creator.

Now, what that means in terms of the Mother of all spoilers, I don't have a clue. As soon as other characters from the "real world" are introduced into the mix, that's where I lose it. I feel that the literal/symbolic line is already being blurred at that point.

Maybe that's where we're headed ... the Land world and the "real" world suffering a major breakdown in terms of their separation. But that's been predicted by others here, too.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

We only really have freedom over the opposite choice: whether to stop our existence. The first question of philosophy.

Whether it is the first problem of philosophy (the problem of universals?) or the last, Donaldson makes use of it pragmatically.

I was speaking of how Camus (French existentialist) claimed that the first question of philosophy was, "Why not suicide?"

Albert Camus saw the goal of absurdism in establishing whether suicide was necessary in a world without God. For Camus, suicide was the rejection of freedom. He thinks that fleeing from the absurdity of reality into illusions, religion or death is not the way out. Instead of fleeing the absurd meaninglessness of life, we should embrace life passionately.

At first I thought there was something philosophical in the Creator's decision not to influence Covenant's will. Then I thought it might have to do with not breaking the Arch. I found a quote from Mhoram to that effect.

Sure it has a lot to do with not breaking the Arch. But that's the narrative reason; the symbolic reason. The Arch is like the barrier between the symbolic and the literal.

It's important for some reason not to collapse the distinction between the symbolic and the literal. The Arch symbolizes that distinction.

If the Creator is part of Covenant (symbolically), then it wouldn't really be an issue for the creative part of his own mind to "control" the rest of him. It's still him; still Thomas Covenant. Indeed, I think the whole point of all this is a man working out which side (his creative or his destructive) will control his actions. Passions (wild magic) can go in either direction. The answer isn't to limit the passions (Oath of Peace), but to use the passions creatively rather than destructively. Making this choice requires reason (Law). Passion controlled by reason. But that control is merely self-control. It's still compatible with freewill.

I think the issue of not breaking the Arch has more to do with not blurring the symbolic lines. If the Land is where our internal battles are externalized, where we meet our own inner Despiser as a foe, then it would be merely redundant to also meet our own inner Creator in the Land. In the battle with our own inner Despiser, we don't simply become rescued by our own inner Creator--rather, we become our own Creator. We rescue ourselves. I think that's the main (symbolic/narrative) reason why the Creator can't enter his own creation. In a sense, that's exactly what he's hoping Covenant will do.

You mentioned a suspicion of "something philosophical in the Creator's decision not to influence Covenant's will." I think you are right to suspect something here. Deciding to allow your own inner Creator to dominate your own inner Destructor *is* an act of freewill. It is impossible for the Creator (as a separate character) to control TC's will because TC is the Creator.

Now, what that means in terms of the Mother of all spoilers, I don't have a clue. As soon as other characters from the "real world" are introduced into the mix, that's where I lose it. I feel that the literal/symbolic line is already being blurred at that point.

We don't know that Hile Troy (with an odd name like that) was from the "real" world, or if he was just a part of Covenant that craves power, potency - like an evil twin. As Covenant himself said to Troy, "I think my subconscious put you here in order to have someone for me to argue with." Or words to that effect.

Maybe that's where we're headed ... the Land world and the "real" world suffering a major breakdown in terms of their separation. But that's been predicted by others here, too.

Speculative

Spoiler

-
Such as my prediction that the Creator will acquire white gold in the end, heh heh.

[wayfriend]

Nobody chooses to be born either. Is there a significant difference? Born choiceless, we are given the power to choose.

That's the central problematic, right there, for all of us. And it is the central problematic, I think, for these characters wrestling with an existential crisis. The journey to the Land is just a symbol of that. We only really have freedom over the opposite choice: whether to stop our existence. The first question of philosophy. We can't choose to be here, nor can we choose to not end, but we do have power over what kind of end we have, and how we live up until then.

We can choose to fight against the "evil" while we're here (1st Chrons), or we can choose to make use of our inevitible passing by letting it be of service against "evil" (2nd Chrons self-sacrifice ... distinct from suicide), or we can ... what? That's the end of the 3rd Chronicles if we can answer that question.

Just to contribute obliquely ... Hamako's description of the Weird of the Waynhim harps on the same cords.

"In the Waynhim tongue, Weird has several meanings. It is fate or destiny - but it is also choice, and is used to signify council or decision-making. It is a contradiction - fate and choice. A man may be fated to die, but no fate can determine whether he will die in courage or cowardice. The Waynhim choose the manner in which they meet their doom."