Kevin's Watch

At the end of the first chronicals everything was all happy and good exept for one charicter, and from the title you probably know who I'm refering to;Trell. He is the only thing that is left corrupted, he is what he hates; he is in this state because of a chain of events springing from Covenant raping his daughter.

O.k. heres the point I'm getting at: Do you think Trell was a kind of prophecy about what was going to happen to the land leading to the second chronicals? Imagine that the staff of law is the lands daughter if you will.

Am I on to anything? (or has it already been discussed?)

That's true that Trell was certainly left out in the cold when it came to everybody's redemption, although even he assisted with the resistance against Satansfist's army.

Trell is a tough case. Though it can be said that there were other characters (who for example were rent to death by Kresh or internally incinerated by a Giant Raver) that might have suffered greatly, Trell stands alone as being left as an apocalyptic emotional wreck with no hope of redemption no matter the outcome of the war. Trell can easily be held up as an example of the power of corruption. As to whether Trell’s plight is a deliberate foreshadowing of the Sunbane I could not say for certain. I suspect however that there is most likely no conscious connection between the two on the part of SRD.

I liken Trell to Kevin more than anything. He, like Kevin, gave into his despair and tried to destroy that which he loved. Revelstone. He found the power of the RoD. I'm not sure I see a foreshadow in him of the Sunbane. But that doesn't mean it may not be there. Donaldson interweaves everything. To me, Donaldson wrote Trell to convey the essence of despair. The Sunbane wasn't formed from despair, it was formed from corruption and despite. Despair doesn't necessarily lead to those things. Trell wasn't "corrupted" he was just lost.

right with u there furl... trell had just been pushed too far to come back from his dispair... he lost track of where it began, and as such he had nowhere to go back to...

i always imagined him living alone for the rest of his days and passing on in some fool-hardly attempt to do something for someone that might not end up in the destruction of everything he cared about......

but thats just me. poor trell

To me Trell has always been a truly tragic figure. He was someone who could have done great things for the Land, but he lost his way in despair and anger...I have always thought that he would be some sort of madman for the rest of his life, unable to bear the site of the stone he injured...

Well Trell did get shafted mightily, it wasn't his own doing, it could be put down to he whom I'm sure Trell would refer to as TFC ... but as I said above he did help with the shoring up of the doors at Revelstone ... (unless I am mistaken) ... and this may have been meant to be a signal of revival in the big feller *ruffles Trell's hair*.

But while his pain may have been thrust upon him without anything he could do about it, he could still have reacted differently, or worked through his reactions. There is a wise saying in the buddhist world that goes sort of like "We don't have a choice about feeling pain, but we can always choose whether we suffer."

One of the biggest challenges that our spiritual selves faces revolves around the difference between the two, pain and suffering, and where our choices lie. Spiritual work on ourselves has a lot to do with training ourselves to accept things, but not allow ourselves to suffer so greatly from things.

In my humble opinion, I think that's where SRD's concept of despair comes from, and its pretty accurate. Despair is allowing ourselves to suffer. So in a fantasy world with good guys and evil guys, like the Land, that's what a writer can focus on; on humankind's deficiencies at handling bad things happening. Much of fantasy storylines can be attributed to people failing to deal adequately with loss and pain.

Trell, I think, struggles in exactly this area. Foul, on the other hand, loves to feed super-extravagant fuel to these potential fires. Look at the way he organised the Unhomed's tragedy. He based it on find a weak spot to plant a seed of despair, and ... *snap fingers* voila.

In Trell's case, Fould didn't do it, but TC sure did. I'm also sure that both Foul and the Creator knew of this possibility. Foul though 'cool', and the Creator thought 'the hope this will bring is going to come with some pretty profound risk that it will cause a lot of despair in the process.'

So, yeah, Trell dealt with despair. The Sunbane is a source of despair. That's why Foul engineered it.

I think they're similar things, but I dunno about a direct correlation from one causing or expanding into or representing the other.

Furls Fire wrote:I liken Trell to Kevin more than anything. He, like Kevin, gave into his despair and tried to destroy that which he loved. Revelstone. He found the power of the RoD. I'm not sure I see a foreshadow in him of the Sunbane. But that doesn't mean it may not be there. Donaldson interweaves everything. To me, Donaldson wrote Trell to convey the essence of despair. The Sunbane wasn't formed from despair, it was formed from corruption and despite. Despair doesn't necessarily lead to those things. Trell wasn't "corrupted" he was just lost.

I agree - Trell was like Kevin in several ways:
1) Trell believed he was witnessing the destruction of Revelstone, and that no one could prevent it. Kevin felt that way about the Land.
2) Trell was obsessed with not leaving Revelstone "intact" for the Despiser's use. Similarly, Kevin did not want to leave an intact Land.
3) Trell's despair required the destruction of that which he loved - just like Kevin.

dlbpharmd wrote:) Trell was obsessed with not leaving Revelstone "intact" for the Despiser's use. Similarly, Kevin did not want to leave an intact Land.

... oops...

(what else can i say?)

Oh yes, Trell would have rather seen Revelstone destroyed then given over to the Despiser and his servants.

Makes you wonder how it would have affected him to see the Clave and Gibbon Raver occupying Revelstone. He never says anything to Covenant in TWL when he, Atarian and Lena meet him on the fringes of Andelain.

I always thought that Trell must have been thinking "Ok - so you saved the Land 4000 years ago. You'll probably save the Land again now. Doesn't mean I have to like you."

[And the point of that was what now?-jay]

Im not really sure...I have respect for the way trell managed to control himself for so long after all that had happeneed to him

jedi_gms wrote:Im not really sure...I have respect for the way trell managed to control himself for so long after all that had happeneed to him

I do too. His restraint was amazing. We get a hint tho, of what was to come in TIW, when he attacked Covenant. We saw that his Oath of Peace was already beginning to wane. I could see something more happening with him in the future. Seeing the outer gate of Revelstone breached by the Giant-Raver was just too much for him, it broke him.