The Purpose of the Ur-Viles

[thewormoftheworld'send]

I will add these other GI answers.

J.R.: Why did the Urviles make Vain, when his purpose went directly agaisnt that of Lord Foul's who they serve?

• The ur-viles created Vain *because* his purpose directly opposed Lord Foul's. Somewhere between the first and second "Chronicles"--we must assume--they engaged in a radical reinterpretation of their Weird. Hence the Despiser's attempts to destroy them in "White Gold Wielder."
  
  It's possible the ur-viles realized that they represent(ed) what we might call an evolutionary deadend. It's like this: in the name of their self-loathing, the ur-viles serve Lord Foul, who desires the destruction of the Earth, and who will therefore (if he succeeds) bring about the destruction of the ur-viles. As reasoning goes, that's nice and tidy. But it has a flaw or two. As a form of suicide, it's quite labor-intensive, and demonstrably unreliable. And self-destruction is not the only possible response to self-loathing.
  
  Conceivably the ur-viles were "corrupted" (in a manner of speaking) by the example of the Waynhim, creatures who clearly found a different use for their heritage of Despite.
  
  (04/14/2004)

Stephen Allange: ... There is one unanswered question that always comes to mind when I read the second chronicles, however. It is concerning Vain. Maybe I have missed it in the text, but why did the ur-viles create Vain? What was theirs to gain by his creation? What lore did they posess to be able to make his purpose mirror that of Findail's? Without Findail or Vain, there is no new staff. Were the Elohim and the ur-viles knowingly involved with one another to bring about the transformation? His purpose is plain, but why did the ur-viles create him, and how did Foamfollower wind up with him? ...

• A few details. It seems fairly obvious the the ur-viles had reinterpreted their Weird and decided to turn against Lord Foul. Why did they do so? Ah, therein lies a tale, without which "The Last Chronicles" might not be posssible. <grin> However, it's important to understand Findail is a reaction to Vain, Covenant, and Linden: Vain was not created in response to, or in concert with, the Elohim (although he may well have been created, in part, as an attempt to manipulate the Elohim). How did Covenant's Dead "wind up with him"? That's simple enough: the ur-viles *gave* Vain to them. Which may not have been *easy* to do--Andelain being rife with Earthpower and all--but it was certainly simple. After all, Caer-Caveral was "in the picture" as much as any of Covenant's Dead.
  
  (11/12/2004)

Self-destruction is not the only possible response to self-loathing.. C'mon, Worm, is it a coincidence that this phrase is in the GI and in your base post?

I don't know what a "base post" is. However, I do recall agreeing with your point that self-destruction is not the only possible response to self-loathing. I distinctly recall writing that I gave you that point.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

and, in response,

Is it plausible that the ur-viles have reinterpreted their Weird? First, change is the very definition of life. Second, any living and thinking being is capable of conscious change. Third, any living, thinking being that is able to acquire new knowledge is capable of choices which may be radically different than its previous choices. (I speak from personal experience.) And the ur-viles aren't stupid. After a certain number of millennia trudging around the landscape getting slaughtered at LF's behest, some of them might well have noticed that they were on a self-destructive path. I consider it highly plausible that they are capable of reinterpreting their Weird.

But have they actually done so? What do the poor things have to do to earn your trust?

Remember the famous "Leave Britney Alooooone!" video? Now it's "Leave the ur-Viles alooooneee!"

And the ur-Viles aren't stupid because it took them a few millennia to figure out that being tools of the Despiser was no way to live?

I'm not bringing this up in the context of my previous answers. I am simply bringing it up because his response is so startling.

Leave the ur-Viles alone, says Donaldson. They aren't stupid, you know. Even ur-Viles can learn, grow, and transform, he says.

I agree that his response is in keeping with the way Donaldson thinks whenever he writes. It's not a morality tale, it's more like a personal-growth story for his characters.

Can even Foul learn and grow? I don't suppose an avatar of evil could possibly undergo a personal-growth transformation.

And I wonder why Donaldson asks his questioner whether or not the ur-Viles have actually reinterpreted their Weird. Wouldn't they have to in order to validate creating Vain in their moving against Despite?

It was an odd response by SRD, but I suspect that there is one aspect you especially want me to pick up on: the ur-Viles rejected the self-destructive path they were on previously as Foul's tools. Therefore, I am to conclude that self-destruction was never any motive of their self-loathing, even though the converse of that saying is also true: self-destruction can be a response to self-loathing.

Now, in the Last Chrons, we even have ur-Viles and Waynhim standing together. Usually. Apparently if the Waynhim disagree with some ur-Vile choices, they simply bow out for the time being rather than fighting with them.


(The rest of his response only stated that the next question went beyond the text. However, I have seen him respond outside the text, as in the comment where he responded to a what-if question about Covenant in TPTP not responding to Foamfollower's and Triock's summoning. So it seems he does give such responses when he feels like it.)

(03/12/2008)
[/quote][/quote]

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

For one thing, we have been given utterly no notion of other Earth's or worlds in the Chrons.

I think a conceptual argument could be made that if the Viles are violations of Law, but not creations of the Despiser's antediluvian corruption of the Earth (like the Illearth Stone)—and if the Viles had to be corrupted later on, I think that's the case—then their Lawlessness is relative only to the system of Law defining the world of the Land (and the way the Ravers persuaded the Viles they were degraded: if the Law of the Viles doesn't harmonize with the Law of this infinitely beautiful Land, then the Viles are inherently worth despising, right? Imagine someone saying to you, "You don't get to really be a part of this ultimate grace in reality," e.g. Andelain. Don't you think that that could teach you to hate yourself?). So the Viles aren't inherently part of that system. So what system are they parts of? Not Earth's: our physics isn't probably consistent with those kinds of entities. So they have to originate in some no less than third parallel reality.

Suspect 2: Hile Troy. If he worked for the Department of Defense, but not the one Covenant called, then he had to work in some *other* DOD, and the only plausible way for there to be this other DOD is if it existed in yet another Earth besides the two directly shown to us now.

I'll admit that this argument involves taking certain indefinite descriptions that Donaldson uses (like "violations of Law"), or scientific (relatively speaking) reconstructions of historical narratives originally presented to the readers in the first two Chronicles as literal fact (I'm thinking of Berek's discovery of the mind of the Earth—which, now that I think of it, might be a primitive example of Anele's power), and working them over at a very abstract level. It's not exactly conjectural, but it might be like trying to complete a puzzle without using all the pieces (or solving an equation using only a few of the rules for it).

At the same time, it would be the most inventive deductively valid extrapolation from anything Donaldson *has* actually said to the answer to one of his mysteries. That's why I hope that Donaldson goes in that direction in the end.

Hey, if it's all a dream, too, that automatically implies infinite alternative universes (even if only in a few people's heads).

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

Why would the Last Chronicles be impossible except for the ur-Viles? Donaldson's epic inspiration for the Second and Last Chronicles must've included some plan or meaning to these creatures that was not completely explained in White Gold Wielder. Technically, wouldn't anything in the Second Chronicles determine how the story of the Last would go? Not [EDIT] if that story was constructed either at random points on the story's timeline or in a sempiternal apprehension of the total timeline. Maybe the ur-Viles knew that the Sunbane could be destroyed by the Appointed or the Sun-Sage, but the latter only with the white gold, too, but if that happened then the Despiser would finally be defeated. Only allowing the Arch of Time to be compromised as to its ultimate defense in Thomas Covenant's transcendent standing by the Staff of Law's limitation of his power would provide the ur-Viles with another way to in the end help their former master.

But then the progress of the huge battle in that one little town in Fatal Revenant, if I remember it correctly, opposed the ur-Viles to the Raver. Earlier, Vain was angry with the Despiser for murdering so many of his makers. If annihilating themselves was their primary ambition, why program their failsafe to hate the Despiser's attempt at annihilation?

Something about the Harrow's talent for spatial distortion indicates my theory, too. Based on what we know about the Insequent, their abilities are specific to them. The Harrow has learned to distort space and to understand Demondim and their spawn in connection with that self-education. If the Viles and their descendants have some inherent knack for manipulating space, maybe this is how they got out of their original reality and into the Land's. Again, not quite conjecture but maybe not concrete enough, but still feasible(?).

[thewormoftheworld'send]

For one thing, we have been given utterly no notion of other Earth's or worlds in the Chrons.

I think a conceptual argument could be made that if the Viles are violations of Law, but not creations of the Despiser's antediluvian corruption of the Earth (like the Illearth Stone)—and if the Viles had to be corrupted later on, I think that's the case—then their Lawlessness is relative only to the system of Law defining the world of the Land (and the way the Ravers persuaded the Viles they were degraded: if the Law of the Viles doesn't harmonize with the Law of this infinitely beautiful Land, then the Viles are inherently worth despising, right? Imagine someone saying to you, "You don't get to really be a part of this ultimate grace in reality," e.g. Andelain. Don't you think that that could teach you to hate yourself?). So the Viles aren't inherently part of that system. So what system are they parts of? Not Earth's: our physics isn't probably consistent with those kinds of entities. So they have to originate in some no less than third parallel reality.

Suspect 2: Hile Troy. If he worked for the Department of Defense, but not the one Covenant called, then he had to work in some *other* DOD, and the only plausible way for there to be this other DOD is if it existed in yet another Earth besides the two directly shown to us now.

I'll admit that this argument involves taking certain indefinite descriptions that Donaldson uses (like "violations of Law"), or scientific (relatively speaking) reconstructions of historical narratives originally presented to the readers in the first two Chronicles as literal fact (I'm thinking of Berek's discovery of the mind of the Earth—which, now that I think of it, might be a primitive example of Anele's power), and working them over at a very abstract level. It's not exactly conjectural, but it might be like trying to complete a puzzle without using all the pieces (or solving an equation using only a few of the rules for it).

At the same time, it would be the most inventive deductively valid extrapolation from anything Donaldson *has* actually said to the answer to one of his mysteries. That's why I hope that Donaldson goes in that direction in the end.

Hey, if it's all a dream, too, that automatically implies infinite alternative universes (even if only in a few people's heads).

I can speculate too. And in this I could point out that, as TC stated, it is a shared dream. And since dreams have unconscious sources, a shared dream would prove that the unconsiousness between individuals is shared. In other words, there is only one unconscious Source of all dreams producing one Land and one Earth.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

Why would the Last Chronicles be impossible except for the ur-Viles? Donaldson's epic inspiration for the Second and Last Chronicles must've included some plan or meaning to these creatures that was not completely explained in White Gold Wielder. Technically, wouldn't anything in the Second Chronicles determine how the story of the Last would go? Not unless that story was constructed either at random points on the story's timeline or in a sempiternal apprehension of the total timeline. Maybe the ur-Viles knew that the Sunbane could be destroyed by the Appointed or the Sun-Sage, but the latter only with the white gold, too, but if that happened then the Despiser would finally be defeated. Only allowing the Arch of Time to be compromised as to its ultimate defense in Thomas Covenant's transcendent standing by the Staff of Law's limitation of his power would provide the ur-Viles with another way to in the end help their former master.

But then the progress of the huge battle in that one little town in Fatal Revenant, if I remember it correctly, opposed the ur-Viles to the Raver. Earlier, Vain was angry with the Despiser for murdering so many of his makers. If annihilating themselves was their primary ambition, why program their failsafe to hate the Despiser's attempt at annihilation?

Something about the Harrow's talent for spatial distortion indicates my theory, too. Based on what we know about the Insequent, their abilities are specific to them. The Harrow has learned to distort space and to understand Demondim and their spawn in connection with that self-education. If the Viles and their descendants have some inherent knack for manipulating space, maybe this is how they got out of their original reality and into the Land's. Again, not quite conjecture but maybe not concrete enough, but still feasible(?).

Foul eliminating the ur-Viles (assuming that was even his goal, which I doubt, because they are useful tools) is irrelevant. As long as the Land exists there remains the possibility of ur-Viles. In the time of the Last Chronicles, the ur-Viles have indeed gone extinct - that is, until Esmer brought them, and some Waynhim, into the present. The only possible way to completely annihilate themselves is to annihilate Time itself.

Technically, the ending of the 2nd Chrons left a lot of loose threads and unanswered questions. One of SRD's comments in the GI allows freedom to speculate about the motives of the ur-Viles, but answers no questions except indirectly. It also allows us to contemplate the reinterpretation of their Weird from that of self-revulsion=self-destruction to that of self-revulsion=something else. But what is that 'something else'? Read and find out.

[Vraith]

I find myself being forced into the idea that SRD is, at least sometimes, using
"unnatural" and "violation of law" in particular [maybe even peculiar] ways that we have not yet fathomed.
For the Demondim, Waynhim, and Ur-viles we have at least one clear basis for both of those terms: they are artificial beings.
For the Viles, I don't think we do...we know they are different, and LF uses that difference and lies to corrupt them. Everything else is definitionless: it's said they aren't subject to Law like others, Loric has to build a special implement to stop them...but we have NO indication that they came from "outside," and NO indication that someone made them [they seem to be makers themselves], and all the clues point to them, before corruption, being much like the Elohim, only more so: great wisdom, and even greater detachment from the doings of lesser beings.
In a way they remind me of White Gold: in the world there just isn't any [unless you consider the AoT a literal, physical, structure]. And White Gold isn't itself any power....it simply triggers the power, wild magic, which is everywhere. [before white gold came it was BOTH irresistable and immovable [or impotent, if you prefer].
I'm just thinking they [the Viles] fit somewhere in the gaps. The universe runs by laws...but those laws are really just statistical, chaos intrudes [is necessary], but chaos itself has rules [and I'm sure there's a layer above and below that continues the pattern...and breaks it again]

[thewormoftheworld'send]

I find myself being forced into the idea that SRD is, at least sometimes, using
"unnatural" and "violation of law" in particular [maybe even peculiar] ways that we have not yet fathomed.
For the Demondim, Waynhim, and Ur-viles we have at least one clear basis for both of those terms: they are artificial beings.
For the Viles, I don't think we do...we know they are different, and LF uses that difference and lies to corrupt them. Everything else is definitionless: it's said they aren't subject to Law like others, Loric has to build a special implement to stop them...but we have NO indication that they came from "outside," and NO indication that someone made them [they seem to be makers themselves], and all the clues point to them, before corruption, being much like the Elohim, only more so: great wisdom, and even greater detachment from the doings of lesser beings.
In a way they remind me of White Gold: in the world there just isn't any [unless you consider the AoT a literal, physical, structure]. And White Gold isn't itself any power....it simply triggers the power, wild magic, which is everywhere. [before white gold came it was BOTH irresistable and immovable [or impotent, if you prefer].
I'm just thinking they [the Viles] fit somewhere in the gaps. The universe runs by laws...but those laws are really just statistical, chaos intrudes [is necessary], but chaos itself has rules [and I'm sure there's a layer above and below that continues the pattern...and breaks it again]

My reading doesn't indicate that the Viles were unnatural. The Demondim were "makings," as well as the ur-Viles and Waynhim. They are artificial, unnatural. They can be unmade but not killed, which is why the Demondim thought they would be immune to the RoD. But violations of Law? Which Laws were violated?

[Vraith]

I find myself being forced into the idea that SRD is, at least sometimes, using
"unnatural" and "violation of law" in particular [maybe even peculiar] ways that we have not yet fathomed.
For the Demondim, Waynhim, and Ur-viles we have at least one clear basis for both of those terms: they are artificial beings.
For the Viles, I don't think we do...we know they are different, and LF uses that difference and lies to corrupt them. Everything else is definitionless: it's said they aren't subject to Law like others, Loric has to build a special implement to stop them...but we have NO indication that they came from "outside," and NO indication that someone made them [they seem to be makers themselves], and all the clues point to them, before corruption, being much like the Elohim, only more so: great wisdom, and even greater detachment from the doings of lesser beings.
In a way they remind me of White Gold: in the world there just isn't any [unless you consider the AoT a literal, physical, structure]. And White Gold isn't itself any power....it simply triggers the power, wild magic, which is everywhere. [before white gold came it was BOTH irresistable and immovable [or impotent, if you prefer].
I'm just thinking they [the Viles] fit somewhere in the gaps. The universe runs by laws...but those laws are really just statistical, chaos intrudes [is necessary], but chaos itself has rules [and I'm sure there's a layer above and below that continues the pattern...and breaks it again]

My reading doesn't indicate that the Viles were unnatural. The Demondim were "makings," as well as the ur-Viles and Waynhim. They are artificial, unnatural. They can be unmade but not killed, which is why the Demondim thought they would be immune to the RoD. But violations of Law? Which Laws were violated?

My reading doesn't indicate that either...I just think it leads to an odd place: Beings that are somehow 'natural,' but not subject [at least not completely so] to the Law of the world. But that's just the Viles.
The others...I'm not sure it ever is said which Law, exactly, is broken by the making of Demondim/Ur-viles/Waynhim...perhaps artificial-but-living, free-willed beings are just 'naturally' violations...but the fact that they are violations is implied often, and Esmer says so outright at some point [at least for Ur-viles and Waynhim...don't recall if Demondim were included, but they are 'made' too.

[wayfriend]

My take is that ur-viles are "unnatural", in the sense that they weren't created by nature, as opposed to by other beings. However, they are "natural" in the sense that they didn't come from outside the Earth - the Creator created a world in which new beings could be created by other beings. So they are created within nature. I think this is confusing to be sure, but that's how I would categorize them.

Since they weren't created by nature, they are not attuned to Law. But since they are created within nature, they are still subject to it.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

My take is that ur-viles are "unnatural", in the sense that they weren't created by nature, as opposed to by other beings. However, they are "natural" in the sense that they didn't come from outside the Earth - the Creator created a world in which new beings could be created by other beings. So they are created within nature. I think this is confusing to be sure, but that's how I would categorize them.

Since they weren't created by nature, they are not attuned to Law. But since they are created within nature, they are still subject to it.

Then the question becomes: what form of magic or lore made them? Was it Earthpower? Doesn't sound like it to me. Then where did this "black" magic come from? If the Viles (whose origin is unknown to me) were natural beings, where did their magic come from?

[wayfriend]

The Viles seemed to have acquired their lore before being tainted by Foul or the banes under Mt thunder.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

The Viles seemed to have acquired their lore before being tainted by Foul or the banes under Mt thunder.

Does the information provided by your link conform to the words of Esmer?

Though they roamed the Land widely, they inhabited the Lost Deep in caverns as ornate and majestic as castles. There they devoted their vast power and knowledge to the making of beauty and wonder, and all of their works were filled with loveliness. For an age of the Earth, they spurned the heinous evils buried among the roots of Gravin Threndor, and even in the time of Berek Lord-Fatherer no ill was known of them.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

The Viles seemed to have acquired their lore before being tainted by Foul or the banes under Mt thunder.

Does the information provided by your link conform to the words of Esmer?

Though they roamed the Land widely, they inhabited the Lost Deep in caverns as ornate and majestic as castles. There they devoted their vast power and knowledge to the making of beauty and wonder, and all of their works were filled with loveliness. For an age of the Earth, they spurned the heinous evils buried among the roots of Gravin Threndor, and even in the time of Berek Lord-Fatherer no ill was known of them.

I didn't read far enough, in fact you quoted this farther down in your comment.

So my question is: what about this apparent discrepancy between the two books' description of Viles?

[wayfriend]

So my question is: what about this apparent discrepancy between the two books' description of Viles?

I see no discrepency. I see only that Fatal describes the early Viles and the later Viles, while Runes only describes the later Viles.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

So my question is: what about this apparent discrepancy between the two books' description of Viles?

I see no discrepency. I see only that Fatal describes the early Viles and the later Viles, while Runes only describes the later Viles.

This, your very first quote from Runes, is the source of the discrepancy as I see it:

"It was said by some... that the Viles were creatures of miasma, evanescent and dire, arising from ancient banes buried within Mount Thunder as mist arises from tainted waters. Others claimed that they were specters and ghouls, the tormented spirits of those who had fallen victim to Corruption's evil. And yet others proclaimed that they were fragments of the One Forest's lost soul, remnants of spirit rent by the slaughter of the trees, and ravenous for harm."

[Relayer]

My take is that ur-viles are "unnatural", in the sense that they weren't created by nature, as opposed to by other beings. However, they are "natural" in the sense that they didn't come from outside the Earth - the Creator created a world in which new beings could be created by other beings. So they are created within nature. I think this is confusing to be sure, but that's how I would categorize them.

Since they weren't created by nature, they are not attuned to Law. But since they are created within nature, they are still subject to it.

This makes me think of an analogy from our world, namely food. (not to get into a think-tank debate here...)

Things like meat, fruit, or vegetables are "natural" in that what we eat is essentially the same as the way it grew. However, other foods are much more highly processed and are made up of recombinations of foodstuff, chemicals, etc. Lawful beings of the Land are analogous to the first; creatures like ur-viles, which are created, are the latter.

[High Lord Tolkien]

So my question is: what about this apparent discrepancy between the two books' description of Viles?

I see no discrepency. I see only that Fatal describes the early Viles and the later Viles, while Runes only describes the later Viles.

Nice!
I like that.

[wayfriend]

Also, in Runes, we have the knowledge of the Viles as known to Stave. In Fatal, we have what is known to Esmer, who presumably is more knowledegable.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

Also, in Runes, we have the knowledge of the Viles as known to Stave. In Fatal, we have what is known to Esmer, who presumably is more knowledegable.

Agreed. Esmer seemed pretty contemptuous of Bloodguard knowledge.