Kevin's Watch

During my current reread of the illearth war i suddenly wondered. If for whatever reason high lord elena had decided against questing for the earthblood and had stayed to fight in the war....what would have been the outcome. I wonder if her presence would have effected the eventual victory outside of revelstone. not to mention covenant might never of been released from her summons. any thoughts on this, hopefully im not touching on something that has already been brought up

Hmm. The effects would have been wide ranging, especially on Covenant. As you say, he's tied to his summoner. I can at least see Elena surviving until the siege of Revelstone, which was, IIRC about twenty years. Covenant was only in the Land for months at a time during the First Chronicles. Who knows what effect prolonged exposure over decades would have had on his dilemma. It's possible he would have gone insane.

Another consideration is that the death of Elena, the disastrous outcome of Covenant's bargain, was a big factor in Covenant's resolve to fight for the Land in TPTP. Without that lesson, he may have simply continued his bargain, taking Elena's survival as validating it.

Projecting into the Second Chrons, no Earthblood for Elena means no breaking of the Law of Death. So no guidance for Covenant from his Dead, and no transformation into the keystone of the Arch. Then again, no ghost of Elena, pehaps no breaking of the Staff of Law? So no Sunbane?

My instinct is that, given all that arose from Elena drinking the Earthblood, her abandoning that purpose would mean victory for Lord Foul.

Cambo wrote:Who knows what effect prolonged exposure over decades would have had on his dilemma. It's possible he would have gone insane.

i hadnt thought about that part, he was such a nut already in the first two books.

I've kind of thought about this question a lot too. I think there's potential for a lot of different things to happen, and I'm pretty sure it would all depend on how you interpret the characters.

Here is my list of most likely outcomes:

- would she have defended Revelstone or gone to fight with Mhoram and Troy?
- would she have gone to the Loresraat and stayed there to defend it?

If she stayed to defend Revelstone:
What happened in the books would probably happen in this world - troy would loose his sight, Mhoram make the bargain etc. Guilt over Troy's death, and the death of (was it Lord Verement?) might lead her to seek the earthblood with covenant, thus setting the story back on it's natural course.

If that didn't happen:
Covenant and Elena's journey was important. It was then that Covenant tried to bargain away his fate, learned that he is Elena's father and developed their relationship. Without this, Covenant may not have had a reason to continue his bargaining. In the end he would have less guilt to inspire him to fight Foul. But Elena wouldn't die.
- potential for a more positive end to the first trilogy:
Every time Covenant leaves the land I always feel like if he'd had a little more time there to heal and learn, he'd come to love it. The land is very healing - every time he leaves he improves as a person. A longer stay there could teach him a lot. Plus:
> Covenant through gradual understanding and the healing of the land and it's people comes to care for it anyway
> Both Mhoram and Elena are there to help the land
> The lords still have the staff of law
> The law of death is not broken (problematic later > second trilogy BUT no sunbane so Foul would find it more difficult to rise again.
Foul wouldn't be permanently defeated, but he WOULD be knocked back for a good long time. After that, anything could happen.

There is potential for a WORSE ending.
- Covenant slowly becomes insane as his isolation in the land and resentment at being summoned away from Joan grows. He never learns to wield the white gold. his isolation in a land that is not his own means he comes to resent the lords. Despite gets a foothold in his soul. Foul wins

If Elena went to fight with Troy and Mhoram
I think this is more likely. She's very powerful and warrior like. I can't see her sitting back and playing defense.
> Would both she and Mhoram have gone with Troy?
> Would Covenant have come with her? Probably yes. She would want him with her, and covenant was pretty much powerless to refuse her.

If only Elena went:
- Possible defeat of the army. Would Elena have called the forestal? If not, it would only be a matter of time before Foul won. Both Elena and Troy would have fallen, all in vain. Without the valuable lessons covenant learned from his bargaining, and without Elena's healing influence, could covenant have defeated Foul? I don't think so. On the other hand, Covenant opened up to Elena faster than anyone else except Foamfollower. His interaction with her (at first, and after the bumpy start) were like a breath of fresh air. Perhaps seeing her death basically at Foul's hands would also have been a motivation for him? He (knowing covenant) would also blame himself > guilt is a powerful motivator. however, the land would be in worse shape than when he left. Revelstone would fall in a matter of months. Covenant wouldn't be able to get back to the land in time to save it, even if he wanted to. (this may lead to an interesting plot where he needs to fight Foul in this world. I'd actually quite like to read this)

If Mhoram and Elena went together
- Possibly a more decisive victory at Doom's retreat? With the power of two lords, they may have been able to defeat Fleshharrower. Troy may not have died, thus providing advice regarding the siege at revelstone. In the end it work out pretty much the same as the positive ore negative ending for Covenant staying in the land. I think that in this case the negative ending would be more likely due to added friction between Troy and Covenant.

I'm sorry this got so long....

Great posting, sohaliatalitha, and welcome to the Watch!

Don't worry about the length of your post, it covered just about everything. Left me with very little to say, which is a rare thing indeed!

One thing you did make me think about was that, unfortunately for Covenant, him coming to love and be at peace in the Land, defeating the Despiser in the same way because of that, and living his natural life out in Revelstone, or wherever, with Elena and Mhoram....would actually be disastrous for the Earth. The Despiser would return, and there would be no TC to oppose him. It's likely the Lords would keep the white gold, possibly even learn how to use it, but none of them would be able to become the keystone of the Arch.

Actually, suppose when the Despiser returned in this scenario, a certain Linden Avery got a visit from a man in an ochre robe? The Second Chronicles with just Linden Avery?? Oh man, I hope a member of THOOLAH reads this and I ruin their day.

Poor woman, she was doomed to fail, te flwas in her own nature making her hubris vulnerable to corruption.

Equally, Mhoram was destined to ascend to greatness having to defend the Land without Elena, the staff of law, Earthblood, the Bloodguard, the giants, Hile Troy, etc, etc.

im wondering if she and covenant had went to war, maybe covenant would have gave her his ring. I think she might have been able to use it since she was kin. i think the combination of her wielding white gold and the staff of law would have made quite a challenge for fouls armies

Interesting, but i'm not sure how effective that would be. It is widly known thet at this time they only knew six of the words. IMHO the seventh would be required to fully unlock the power of the white gold and use it safely in conjunction with the staff

Law and wild magic are pretty much opposites in nature. Doesn't it say in the song that wild magic has no Law? So I don't think even the seventh word, given that it invokes Earthpower and Law, would enable Elena to wield them both simultaneously. If she did, the Staff of LAw would probably break as it did in the confrontation between Elena's shade and Covenant at the Colossus of the Fall.

But if we're looking at optimistic scenarios, Covenant unlocking his wild magic while Elena still held the Staff of Law...that would certainly mean a victory for the Lords.

Hate to say it, but Elena was clearly an unbalanced mind and a liability to the Land. Her being failure set the stage for the rise of Mhoram, in my book the Land's greatest ever defender. Just look what he could do without the staff of Law, the Bloodguard, the giants, Earthpower, a fit and well Covenant, Hile Troy, etc, and therein lies his true greatness.

illender wrote:During my current reread of the illearth war i suddenly wondered. If for whatever reason high lord elena had decided against questing for the earthblood and had stayed to fight in the war....what would have been the outcome. I wonder if her presence would have effected the eventual victory outside of revelstone. not to mention covenant might never of been released from her summons. any thoughts on this, hopefully im not touching on something that has already been brought up

What would have happened if the Creator had never been born and the Land never came to be?

No, I really do enjoy these "what-if" questions about the Chrons. I've asked some myself (as well as one about the Gap). In this case, it's like asking "what if Elena was not Elena"? In particular, what if Elena was not crazy? Etc.

The purpose, the wider purpose, of all this is to drive Covenant down deeper into his dream/nightmare/delusion. If Elena did not crave power over madness, then the Covenant arc might have to revolve around some other character equally as important to him. And we can't have TC sitting on his thumbs at Revelstone, that wouldn't be much of a story. So we could have Troy bickering with Covenant all the way to meet Foul's army on a long forced march in which TC would have been carried most of the way. Or we could divert TC and Elena to Coercri accompanied by a few proud Bloodguard and a fragment of the Illearth Stone. In that case we would not have the same exciting conclusion where everybody meets together in the same place with a forestal as host of the party, which was the best possible ending I could possibly hope for. In other words, it's as if you're asking - why not just ruin the story?

Would TC's real word body survive without him in it?

Thats 15 to 20 days without water.
Maybe he would have found a clue to unleashing the wild magic so he could return. Or he may have jouneyed back to drink the earthblood himself so he could return.

If Elena didn't call Kevin and did a different command, it would have most probably given Foul the victory he wanted. Abeit 5 to 10 thousand years later.

...just got to the end of my reread of illearth war. i know everyone says she was crazy, but i think im in love.

illender wrote:...just got to the end of my reread of illearth war. i know everyone says she was crazy, but i think im in love.

Elena is/was unbalanced but cool. One really stupid mistake with the Earthblood. There were 10,000 other Commands she could have given that would have been far superior. How about Commanding the Illearth Stone's destruction?

However, without the Staff of Law being lost, Foul would have taken longer to regenerate himself and also would have needed a new plan for the Second Chronicles. Without the Sunbane maybe he would have tried a Last Chronicles-like plan instead.

Spoiler

I wonder what Kastenessen was up to at the time?

Horrim Carabal wrote:

illender wrote:...just got to the end of my reread of illearth war. i know everyone says she was crazy, but i think im in love.

Elena is/was unbalanced but cool. One really stupid mistake with the Earthblood. There were 10,000 other Commands she could have given that would have been far superior. How about Commanding the Illearth Stone's destruction?

However, without the Staff of Law being lost, Foul would have taken longer to regenerate himself and also would have needed a new plan for the Second Chronicles. Without the Sunbane maybe he would have tried a Last Chronicles-like plan instead. I wonder what Kastenessen was up to at the time?

Heh, I'm beginning to feel like a Horrim stalker here. But I'm just a guy with a lot of knowledge of the Chrons.

Amok addressed this very point you make when he stated that if someone were to Command the Stone's destruction, perhaps its uncontained evil would spread throughout the Earth.

There is supposedly no Command that any mortal human could devise that would not have some kind of evil boomerang effect, this renders the Power of Command effectively worthless.

TheWormoftheWorld'sEnd wrote: Heh, I'm beginning to feel like a Horrim stalker here. But I'm just a guy with a lot of knowledge of the Chrons.

Hey, stalk away. I love discussing this stuff!

TheWormoftheWorld'sEnd wrote:Amok addressed this very point you make when he stated that if someone were to Command the Stone's destruction, perhaps its uncontained evil would spread throughout the Earth.

I'd forgotten that! Probably something like that would happen. But it would still reduce Foul's power, since by that time he was using the Stone for:

1 - Possessing giants who were leading his armies.
2 - Corrupting Haruchai.
3 - Mastering High Lord Kevin's shade.
4 - Shaving?

Basically losing the Stone would have hurt Foul a lot more than it would have hurt the Earth.

TheWormoftheWorld'sEnd wrote:There is supposedly no Command that any mortal human could devise that would not have some kind of evil boomerang effect, this renders the Power of Command effectively worthless.

The Power is the Seventh Ward, right? So presumably after adequate study it could be used in a way that would not result in catastrophe. Else Kevin would have realized its uselessness and not included it in his Wards.

Horrim Carabal wrote:

TheWormoftheWorld'sEnd wrote: Heh, I'm beginning to feel like a Horrim stalker here. But I'm just a guy with a lot of knowledge of the Chrons.

Hey, stalk away. I love discussing this stuff!

So do I, and it seems there's always more to learn.

Horrim Carabal wrote:

TheWormoftheWorld'sEnd wrote:Amok addressed this very point you make when he stated that if someone were to Command the Stone's destruction, perhaps its uncontained evil would spread throughout the Earth.

I'd forgotten that! Probably something like that would happen. But it would still reduce Foul's power, since by that time he was using the Stone for:

1 - Possessing giants who were leading his armies.
2 - Corrupting Haruchai.
3 - Mastering High Lord Kevin's shade.
4 - Shaving?

Basically losing the Stone would have hurt Foul a lot more than it would have hurt the Earth.

TheWormoftheWorld'sEnd wrote:There is supposedly no Command that any mortal human could devise that would not have some kind of evil boomerang effect, this renders the Power of Command effectively worthless.

The Power is the Seventh Ward, right? So presumably after adequate study it could be used in a way that would not result in catastrophe, right? Else Kevin would have realized its uselessness and not included it in his Wards.

We really don't know the effect of releasing the evil within the Bane. If powerful enough it could blight the entire Earth, and that is certainly something Foul desires as he has always found wanton destruction to be personally satisfying. As for the Seventh Ward, there was also, I recall, some discussion as to why Kevin did not make use of it himself in his last desperate hour. But I don't think anybody asked why even he chose to include it as a Ward. It's like asking why there are 7 Wards and not 6 or 8.
Indeed, Kevin would have found white gold infinitely more useful.

Indeed, Kevin would have found white gold infinitely more useful.

i get way too excited about what ifs, as if no one could tell. imagine during the end of kevins rein if he had thought of this and somehow summoned a younger, married and actually happy non leper covenant. oh the possibilities

illender wrote:

Indeed, Kevin would have found white gold infinitely more useful.

i get way too excited about what ifs, as if no one could tell. imagine during the end of kevins rein if he had thought of this and somehow summoned a younger, married and actually happy non leper covenant. oh the possibilities

Yes, but relevant to the origin of the Land itself, Covenant was not dreaming of it at the time, let's say, roughly 3 years before in Covenant's own time. Of course then you could always ask "what if" Covenant had a dream in which he was summoned by High Lord Kevin.