Kevin's Watch

We know the krill was made by Loric.

[mod edit - the following sentence contains a piece of information revealed in chapter 1 of AATE. Please do not discuss information from AATE in this forum.]

Spoiler

Loric found its stone in Melenkurion Skyweir.

We presume the stone is a shard from the "the One Stone". A property of the krill is the blade's ability to cut any stone and not become dull.

The heals of the staff have never been spoken of in their origin, if memory serves, except that they were fashioned by Berek. They survived an attack from covenant's ring. so far, nothing has survived a full blast of wild magic, except the heals and the krill.

so, is the lore or craftsmanship of the krill and the heals the same?

Are the heals of the staff Berek's/Theomach ingenuity that was later refined by Loric?

Or are the 2 completely different in their nature?

Pure speculation, but I'd say they're distant cousins, by which I mean:
Metalwork requires a basic skill set that would be common to both, with refinements/alternatives depending on the specific metals, and the things intended function. And Lore is similar, but more so...since personality/will/desire also affect the expression, not just function/physical constraints.
[and I'm just assuming there was Lore involved in the heels in some way, or I don't understand why Vain would want them...I don't see Vain or his makers indulging in a purely symbolic act.]

Of course, that all goes right out the window if Berek or Loric didn't use any ordinary smithing process at all, simply grabbed some stuff and made the things with pure Lore-power.

The Heels by themselves are symbolic.
And I think that's all there is to them.

They were needed to show that TC destroyed the original Staff.
And by "needed" I mean needed by SRD as a story telling tool.
It allowed us and everyone in the Land to "see" what was destroyed.

In the Second Chronicles they were symbolic once again and a HUGE clue as to the mystery of Vain.

In the 3rd?
Do they have a point other than some wild guesses here at the Watch?
Have they even been mentioned at all in a significant way?


And the Heels only "survived" TC's destruction of the Staff because his power wasn't focused on anything BUT the Staff.
Which I think reinforces the case that they are not significant.
If they were bound up/joined in some way with the Staff they would have been destroyed as well.

i highly doubt they just through items together with lore, but it brings a valid point to mind. the metals used might be irrelevant, unlikely, but i do believe the lore was the most significant aspect to it.

you make a point with intention. the desire to sustain law from the heals may have been what vain and his creators needed them. although vain clearly was intended for those purposes, his creators were naturally unlawful. there for, lore needed law for justification.

the krill however isn't designed for law, specifically. it, along with the heals, seem to have unlimited capacities for energy, whether lore, law, or wild magics are channeled. the question is ultimate the foundation of the old lords lore. what kind of power and/or anticipation of power did they require tools of such grandeur?

I think the heels survived an attack of wild magic only because wild magic missed them. The wild magic went through the Staff to strike at Elena. Like a lightning bolt, it destroyed what was along its path, and left other things alone.

The heels are, however, more than symbolic. Like the runes on the Staff of Law, they are an embodiment of the lore of the Lords present in the Staff. By using them in the new Staff, something real and concrete from the old Staff became part of the new. Heck, if the fact that the new Staff hasn't any runes, such as the old Staff had, is very significant, according to Donaldson himself, then surely the presence of the heels is very important as well.

Im still seeing a tremendous amount of similarities concerning the 2 items. what im not seeing is abundant detail about them.

i would guess this next book, AATE is going to explain the possibilities for the worm with these metals. their origins may be linden and TC's solution for its imprisonment.

another link might be these manacles. created by lore? certainly.
similarity of metallurgy used in their creation? possibly.

time will tell

I'd say metal in the Land, like metal in our world functions as a conductor to the magical energies it comes in contact with.

The metal heals of the Staff weren't harmed because they managed to pass the White Magic energy from Thomas Covenant to the wooden parts of the Staff and to Elena.

They're not magical in themselves, they just pass it along from the magical objects (like the One Tree wood in the Staff or the stone in the Krill) to other things well.

This becomes particularly apparent in the confrontation Thomas Covenant has with Kasreyn of the Gyre. Kasreyn surrounds himself with a circle of golden rings that act as a close circuit that absorbs the White Magic energy Covenant lashes at him with and protect him like a Faraday Cage.

I do find it interesting that SRD has not made any seeming attempt at explaining the significance of these heels. It might be quite a stretch, but could it be possible that they were made by ur-viles?

The ur-viles weren't in existence during Berek's time, so I don't think that's possible.

Ah yes, how right you are.

Thanks.

sammadhi wrote:Im still seeing a tremendous amount of similarities concerning the 2 items. what im not seeing is abundant detail about them.

i would guess this next book, AATE is going to explain the possibilities for the worm with these metals. their origins may be linden and TC's solution for its imprisonment.

Imprisonment of the Worm? Isn't it rather - big - for one of Jeremiah's constructs? Perhaps that's not what you meant.

how's this for a whacked out theory?

(1)when vain and findail merged the resulting staff was pale and unadorned by runes

(2)during the battle at earthroot the staff is blackened (like bereks staff)

(3)when linden encouters caeroil wildwood in garrotting deep he applies runes to the staff (just like bereks staff)

conclusion. at some point linden's staff will be cast back in time to berek & the theomach where berek will claim it as his own.
therefore there was only ever one staff of law created in the final chapter of wgw!

concerning the heels of the staff -loric's krill? white gold? I'm sure another twist in the tale will explain all.

The idea's been floated before, but Berek's original staff was NOT black. The Forestal goes so far as to call the color of Linden's staff "lamentable." TLCs involve time travel but the old staff and new staff are (probably) not the same.