Kevin's Watch

Since the Insequent were introduced in FR, I thought this might be the appropriate forum to throw this thought out.

I've always wondered about the nature/origin of the Ravers. Their origins were briefly hinted at in the First Chronicles, but never fleshed out. Is it possible that they are actually some sort of Insequent? Their names (moksha, etc...) are italicized, as the real names of the Insequent are, and they certainly possess powers far beyond those of mortals. They are also long-lived, if not immortal.

I know there are some issues. For example, if their names are known, then why cannot they be summoned/controlled by their use, etc. But The Theomach's name has no power over him after he became the Guardian, so perhaps the three brothers suffered some other sort of event that rendered their names powerless.

just some food for thought.

I think they are the children of Foul and whatever evil entity resides in the Swamp.
There's a line in FR that says that Foul "turned his attention" there (quotes are mine) when Linden was given a history of the Land.

TC had a child within the Land, there's no reason Foul couldn't too.

High Lord Tolkien wrote:I think they are the children of Foul and whatever evil entity resides in the Swamp.
There's a line in FR that says that Foul "turned his attention" there (quotes are mine) when Linden was given a history of the Land.

TC had a child within the Land, there's no reason Foul couldn't too.

SRD makes all this difficult by refusing to make things more literal. Everything has to be some expression of abstract, transcendental concepts. He seems to realize that his readers will demand more empirical knowledge of origins and such, but he hides these origins in antiquity and merely drops hints, "black holes" of knowledge which SRD himself hasn't filled in.

So, in this case, we see one of the books hinting that the Ravers had a mother, but it says nothing about the father. Beyond that, SRD hinted at no other physical origin or history of the Ravers. However, they are spiritual expressions of human evil. They represent, not evil in some personal sense, but collective evil in humanity. Their true origin is lost in the mists of time, but it can generally be dated back to the era when humans first entered the Land and began to ravage the One Forest.

TheWormoftheWorld'sEnd wrote: So, in this case, we see one of the books hinting that the Ravers had a mother, but it says nothing about the father. Beyond that, SRD hinted at no other physical origin or history of the Ravers.

I just gave you a hint.

TheWormoftheWorld'sEnd wrote: However, they are spiritual expressions of human evil. They represent, not evil in some personal sense, but collective evil in humanity.

This is based on what?
They clearly hate trees more than anything.
Humans just make good axes.

TheWormoftheWorld'sEnd wrote: Their true origin is lost in the mists of time, but it can generally be dated back to the era when humans first entered the Land and began to ravage the One Forest.

I disagree.
Although we only have a few sentences to base it on I got the impression that the felling of the Forest took many centuries.
We learned in FR that the Colossus held the Ravers back long before the humans began the felling of the trees in the Great Forest (is that what it was called originally? I forget) and only learned to circumvent the Colossus by going around the Southern Range around Bereks time.
I think so anyway.
Someone needs to take a shot at making a new timeline with the added info from FR.

Would be interesting to find out that the Ravers and Merewives come from the same line.

High Lord Tolkien wrote:

TheWormoftheWorld'sEnd wrote: So, in this case, we see one of the books hinting that the Ravers had a mother, but it says nothing about the father. Beyond that, SRD hinted at no other physical origin or history of the Ravers.

I just gave you a hint.

TheWormoftheWorld'sEnd wrote: However, they are spiritual expressions of human evil. They represent, not evil in some personal sense, but collective evil in humanity.

This is based on what?
They clearly hate trees more than anything.
Humans just make good axes.

TheWormoftheWorld'sEnd wrote: Their true origin is lost in the mists of time, but it can generally be dated back to the era when humans first entered the Land and began to ravage the One Forest.

I disagree.
Although we only have a few sentences to base it on I got the impression that the felling of the Forest took many centuries.
We learned in FR that the Colossus held the Ravers back long before the humans began the felling of the trees in the Great Forest (is that what it was called originally? I forget) and only learned to circumvent the Colossus by going around the Southern Range around Bereks time.
I think so anyway.
Someone needs to take a shot at making a new timeline with the added info from FR.

Like i said, it was called the One Forest. As for the rest, I am only working off memory since I don't have the first Chronicles with me right now. You can see from Linden's adventures in FR that there was no longer a One Forest in Berek's time. The felling of the One Forest took many centuries, but I'm just saying that the Ravers came into being around the time when there was still a One Forest in the Land. Nobody knows exactly when, or even precisely how. This is the "black hole" of information I mentioned. SRD says that they are three brothers, but the reference to a mother might even be a metaphor.

You say that humans are just good with the axe, while the Ravers are tree haters. I'm sure the humans back then didn't perceive it as intentional evil, but from an environmentalist's viewpoint it is evil, so it depends on perspective. The trees apparently saw being chopped down and killed as a great evil. Can you blame them? But the appearance of tree-hating Ravers reveals that it truly is an evil in the Land.

There is always something dissatisfying about the idea that Ravers simply appeared out of nowhere, as some kind of spiritual manifestations of a collective evil. But then, the Land is just a dream anyway, and weirder things have been know to happen there.

I get the impression that the ravers were present before foul showed up. Somewhere it says that foul took the ravers into his service this tells me that they were there before foul.

sherlock_525 wrote:I get the impression that the ravers were present before foul showed up. Somewhere it says that foul took the ravers into his service this tells me that they were there before foul.

As SRD might say, nobody was there until TC dreamed it all up. But nothing is clear about it except to say that LF has been there since the beginning of time, although nobody is exactly sure where he's been
the whole time.

That's my whole point: He heasn't been in the land the whole time. The ravers could have come from another source, foul just...co-opted them into his plans.

sherlock_525 wrote:That's my whole point: He heasn't been in the land the whole time. The ravers could have come from another source, foul just...co-opted them into his plans.

How do you know if LF hasn't been in the Land the whole time? Like I said, nobody knows where he was. I don't think Foul's personal bio goes back farther than Berek, not counting his presence in the legend of the Creator.

The Elohim said that foul's attention was not on the land in the begining. Foul didn't come to the land until sometime around Berek's lordship, and we know the distruction of the One Forest began way before then.

sherlock_525 wrote:The Elohim said that foul's attention was not on the land in the begining. Foul didn't come to the land until sometime around Berek's lordship, and we know the distruction of the One Forest began way before then.

That was quick. Now for another quick question: Why does it say I am still "on the Watch" under my name? It's getting lonely up here...

Don't worry. I work weird hours so I'm alone at times on the watch.

sherlock_525 wrote:Don't worry. I work weird hours so I'm alone at times on the watch.

It says you're off the watch. Apparently I need to upload a pic.

I had thought they might be related in some way to Viles & have a similar origin, being incorporeal like them. The little episode where Linden encounters Viles actually reinforced this impression.

Could the Ravers be Viles or the offspring or creations of Viles, that somehow, eons ago, under the influence of Despite, got a corrupt taste for harming trees, & were eventually banished by the others?

Of course, that begs the question of in what sense Viles could have mothers & be brothers. It does appear that Ravers were a pretty unique life-form otherwise.

Caer Bombadil wrote:I had thought they might be related in some way to Viles & have a similar origin, being incorporeal like them. The little episode where Linden encounters Viles actually reinforced this impression.

Could the Ravers be Viles or the offspring or creations of Viles, that somehow, eons ago, under the influence of Despite, got a corrupt taste for harming trees, & were eventually banished by the others?

No, their genesis is with mankind. They are evil human spirits, three brothers, but not ghosts. Otherwise their shades would have passed into the realm of the Dead and never seen again since this was long before the Law of Death was broken. They came into existence during the time of the ravaging of the One Forest and are a product of that evil deed. They represent the collective evil of mankind in spirit form.

Caer Bombadil wrote:Of course, that begs the question of in what sense Viles could have mothers & be brothers. It does appear that Ravers were a pretty unique life-form otherwise.

Re: How do you know if LF hasn't been in the Land the whole time? Like I said, nobody knows where he was.

Somewhere in the books it says that Foul came to the Land with human beings.

Re: They came into existence during the time of the ravaging of the One Forest and are a product of that evil deed.

No, all the stories about them have them already in existence when the Forest was still intact. It was to keep them at bay that the Elohim intervened. It was only later that human beings came on the scene from the South and the Ravers took advantage of human stupidity and greed to convince them to start destroying the Forest.

Aleksandr wrote:Re: How do you know if LF hasn't been in the Land the whole time? Like I said, nobody knows where he was.

Somewhere in the books it says that Foul came to the Land with human beings.

Re: They came into existence during the time of the ravaging of the One Forest and are a product of that evil deed.

No, all the stories about them have them already in existence when the Forest was still intact. It was to keep them at bay that the Elohim intervened. It was only later that human beings came on the scene from the South and the Ravers took advantage of human stupidity and greed to convince them to start destroying the Forest.

Let's put it this way then: I gave you their origin, you didn't.

I thought one of the books mentioned them as being the offspring of "the Three Tree".

Anybody else remember this?

Where is the info about them being humans arrising during the felling of the One Forest from?

I think Jeremiah knows.

And I believe there will be an insequent who knows as well.. I hope there is anyway!!!

So where do the Ravers fit into the 'creation story'? Have they always stayed close to the continent of the Land? Or had they confined themselves there to align with Foul's service? Issues of where they came from, what created them..

No idea.
I don't like to see them as the manifestation of the evil inherent in humanity.. If that were the case, I would expect the powers of the ravers to actually have decreased over the Chronichles as the Humans in the Land had become less pure than they seemed in the 1st Chrons..

Does that make senso to anyone else? I would imagine if the human of the Land and ravers were as intrinsically linked as others have suggested, the Ravers would grow less powerful as the Humans became less 'good'.. The strength of the Ravers has remailned constant, while the nature of the humans has changed dramatically.

I would be quite dissapointed if we don't discover the answers over the next couple of books...