Did this break a Law?
There may be some clues in the Final Chronicles that he did indeed.
Summoning Covenant was originally an act of Law. You needed the Staff of Law to achieve it. This is confirmed in the soothtell:
However, after the Staff of Law was destroyed by wild magic, things get a little blurry. Covenant is summoned two more times without the Staff of Law. There are three different explanations as to how it was possible.In [u]The Wounded Land[/u] was wrote:In the past, such summons had always been an act of Law, performed by the holder of the Staff.
In [u]The Power That Preserves[/u] was wrote:"We must attempt to summon the Unbeliever."
At this, a stark silence filled the Close. Mhoram could feel waves of surprise and excitement and dread pouring down on him from the galleries. Warmark Quaan's passionate objection struck across his shoulders. But he waited in the silence until Lord Loerya found her voice to say, "That is impossible. The Staff of Law has been lost. We have no means for such a summoning." The soft timbre of her voice barely covered its hard core.
Still Mhoram waited, looking toward the other Lords for answers to Loerya's claim. After a long moment, Trevor said hesitantly, "But the Law of Death has been broken."
"And if the Staff has been destroyed," Amatin added quickly, "then the Earthpower which it held and focused has been released upon the Land. Perhaps it is accessible to us."
"And we must make the attempt," said Mhoram.
In [u]The Power That Preserves[/u] was wrote:He was full of grief over the strange ease with which he had summoned the Unbeliever. Without the Staff of Law, he should not have been able to call Covenant alone; yet he had succeeded. He knew why. Covenant had been so vulnerable to the summons because he was dying.
I think we can rule out the one theory, that of uncontained Earthpower, as speculation. Similarly, another theory, that limitations have been lifted, is a reasonable interpretation, but a hypothesis nonetheless. But the second theory, that of Covenant's near death combined with a broken Law of Death, was one that Mhoram knew, and even Lord Trevor saw it coming.In [u]The Power That Preserves[/u] was wrote:"With the lomillialor of High Lord Mhoram, and the strength of Saltheart Foam-follower, and the lore I brought from the Loresraat, we labored for three days, and in the end brought you to the Land. It was not easily done."
Triock's flint voice sparked visions of desperation in Covenant's mind. To resist them, control them until he was ready for them, he asked, "But how? I thought only the Staff of Law-"
"Much has been broken by the fall of High Lord Elena," Triock retorted. "The Land has not yet tasted all the consequences of that evil. But the Staff made possible certain expressions of power-and limited others. Now that limit is gone. Do you not feel the malice of this winter?"
This is later confirmed in the soothtell.
Other questions aside, we can see two things clearly.In [u]The Wounded Land[/u] was wrote:Only when he had been close to death from starvation and rattlesnake venom, and the Law of Death had been broken, had summoning been possible without the Staff.
One, that summoning is guided and bounded by Law.
Two, that when Laws are broken, otherwise impossible summonings become possible.
Donaldson never used the term "Law of Summoning", but lets use that term to describe the Law or Laws that govern summoning.
We also know that, using a sufficient amount of power, you can break Law, by forcing something to happen that should not happen. Elena broke the Law of Death in this way, using the Power of Command as a power source. Caer-Caveral broke the Law of Life in this way, using his death and the krill as a power source.
Donaldson considers the ability to break Law in this way a fundamental of universe-building.
From this we can conclude that it would be possible to break the Law of Summoning, with sufficient power.In the Gradual Interview, Donaldson wrote:You're a Creator; and you want to create a world that will be an organic whole, a living, breathing entity, rather than a mere mechanical extrapolation of your own personality and preferences. So how do you accomplish that goal? The obvious answer is: give the inhabitants of your world--or perhaps even the world itself--free will. Allow them to use or misuse as they see fit whatever your world happens to contain. Therefore they must be equally capable of both preserving and destroying your creation. QED.
When you look at it that way, the fact that the powers in the Land can be used to break the Laws which preserve the Land is sort of a "Duh." That *has* to be true. Otherwise your world is nothing more than an exercise in ego, a piece of machinery which exists solely to glorify you.
(07/13/2004)
Events in The One Tree clearly show that that is exactly what might have happened. Covenant uses the illimitable might of wild magic, intensely focused, to thrust Linden back across the boundary of worlds.
And this was not how summoning naturally worked. You don't get to go back, not until your summoning is revoked by your summoner. You don't get to go back, not until your physical condition matches on both sides. These are the Laws.In [u]The One Tree[/u] was wrote:But he did not silence his power. He altered it. Suddenly, wild magic flooded into her through his embrace. [...] he had changed in a moment from unchecked virulence to wild magic incarnate, deliberate mastery. [...]
His might bore her away. It did not touch her physically. It did not unbind her arms from him, did not harm her body. But it translated everything. Rushing through her like a torrent, it swept her out of herself, frayed her as if she were a mound of sand eroded by the sea, hurled her out among the stars.
Massive amounts of power. Focused with the intention of getting something to happen that should not happen, something that is contrary to Law.
This is exactly how Laws get broken.
And if summoning operates by Law, and impossible summonings are possible when Laws are broken, then it follows that using might to force an impossible summoning will break Laws.
The One Tree goes on to describe the result of forcing summoning to work contrary to the natural way.
Again, this is not natural. Never has someone been able to be conscious of both sides at the same time. Covenant and Linden were never aware of anything in their real world until they returned from the Land.In [u]The One Tree[/u] was wrote:She was in two places at once. The wild magic continued to flow through her, linking her to Covenant, to the cavern of the One Tree. But at the same time she was elsewhere.
Two places at once.
In the Final Chronicles, this concept recurs.
We have Jeremiah, who is in Linden's real world but obviously sees things in the Land at the same time.
We have Joan, who is in Linden's real world but who obviously can do things in the Land at the same time.
Two places at once. Without any apparent explanation so far.
Could Covenant have made it possible, by breaking the Law of Summoning? Made it possible for Jeremiah and Joan to be in the Land at the same time that they were not? Can the blame for ceasures be as much laid on Covenant as Linden? Can Covenant have created the way for Jeremiah's mind to flee his body in the real world?
Could he even have made it possible for Foul to create that thunderstorm that occurred just as Linden was being summoned? Foul used the thunder to kill Joan, so that she could summon everyone else. His plan demanded that Joan die at that instant. He needed that thunder! How could we not think that he somehow reached to that world and created it?
During the Runes dissection, the story caused me to wonder if the line between the Land and Covenant's real world had gotten blurred, that maybe even the real world was in danger from Foul.
In the Gradual Interview was wrote:Annie Wood: How did Lord Foul get ahold of fanatics in Thomas Covenant's world? I remember reading how they "invoked" Foul by putting their hands in the bonfire, but don't remember if it was stated how he was able to communicate with them in the first place. [...]
- I suppose you could say that "like responds to like": those fanatics were already Despiser-surrogates of a sort, so they were easily influenced. Or I suppose you could say that the barriers between realities are breaking down, thanks to LF's original abuse of Drool and the Staff of Law. Or I suppose you could say that some things are better left to the reader's imagination. <rueful smile>
(09/27/2007)
