Thesholds

[earthbrah]

Anele is the last hope of the Land. His birth was made possible by the death of the last forestall breaking the Law of Life. Somehow through the process of Holian being brought back to life, and Anele with her, he was infused with a massive amount of earthpower. He expended all that earthpower to enable Jeremiah’s freedom from the croyel, and ultimately from his self-imposed exile within his mind. Anele’s life was enabled because a threshold or boundary between life and death was further damaged because of the law breaker, Caer Caveral. Jeremiah’s seemingly innate ability plus the gift of earthpower from Anele enabled him to resurrect himself through the bone structure; he broke through a threshold or boundary within himself, his Law of Death if you will.

So Anele is supposed to be the last hope of the Land. The forestals were in their way supposed to be the last hope of the One Forest. They were placed there as defenders, as forbiddings in a way. Their power allowed them to encase an elohim into the Colossus as an interdict or forbidding, to create a boundary or threshold that a certain evil—ravers in the case of the Colossus—could not cross. Anele said in AATE that without forbidding, there is too little time. The Magister of Andelain said in TC’s trip down memory lane as Timewarden that wood cannot remember the lore of the Colossus, the necessary forbidding of evils. It is clear that Anele was either channeling this knowledge through the forestals, maybe because of some innate connection he has to them because of Caer Caveral’s sacrifice for him. Or maybe he has this knolwedge without directly knowing it because of this gift of earthpower, not unlike Wildwood carving the runes on Linden's staff, having the knowledge that they needed to be there but not directly knowing the specifics of why. Did Caer Caveral know that this knowledge would be needed in the future, and so gave it Anele through his gift of sacrifice, or was it written into the exchange when Caer Caveral enabled his life through earthpower?

The thought of sacrifice makes me return to the issue of boundaries and thresholds. When TC gave his life in WGW, and then allowed Foul to burn the venom from his soul with wild magic thus enabling his spirit to become pure and remain as a defender of the Arch—essentially enabling him to become Timewarden—did he do so knowingly? Or was it just that his particular sacrifice in that particular way at that particular time made his becoming Timewarden possible? Either way, his apparently innate relationship with time—the fact that he himself is the white gold—plays a part. He crossed the threshold of life to remain as a spiritual defender; he crossed the boundary of limitation and mortality to participate in the infinite. He crossed back when Linden resurrected him with Law, wild magic and the krill (could the stone be a part of this?), but was not whole(ly present). He fully returned when he used the krill’s magic in the caesure to seal off the cracks in his mind from the slippage back into the infinite.

Anele crossed a threshold of death when his birth was enabled by Caer Caveral; he crossed the same boundary the other way when he poured his earthpower essence into Jeremiah. He is the last hope of the Land; it is just possible that his spirit remains as a defender of the boundary between life and death—Lifewarden? Even if not in this specific way, I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Anele. His palendromic counterpart of Elena returned to sacrifice herself for the company; Anele’s final sacrifice may not have been what he did for Jeremiah.

[lurch]

earth..Yes, it is difficult for me to imagine the author finishing this tale up without the further mention/ involvement of Anele. There will be linkage from the last chapter of TLD to Anele and even further, perhaps, furtherest. Trust is what answers your inquiry, or suggested thinking about. Trust the Unknown. ...or Trust what the Author is Going to do..based on by what he has already done. So yea..kinda like TC seeing the BS of the Raver's version of the ancient meeting of the Forestals..a Trust that reminded from ancient times,,that what TC was experiencing,,was false.Here is the point...not only was the recollection of that meeting in the glade,,a beautiful memory to behold..but its beguiling beauty was pointed out by the forestals ,,to be false....A nice Hamlet moment...To Kill Joan or not to Kill Joan..yea,,if he stays with his memories...Joan will kill hm, If he drops his memories,,and Trusts his instincts ,,creates a future..does what he knows he has to do..kills Joan..then he, and as we see, Linden et al..get to live into that future created.

I trust,,that whatever the author has Jerry doing with his power..will some how pay back to Anele for his sacrifice...much like the beauty of the conclave in the glade..paid back to TC in its falseness as a remembered reality to get stuck in. The "flat" of that memory is the almost total lack of the unknown. Trust the Unknown...Kill the Joan....Hows that for a " Threshold" ?

[ninjaboy]

I think that we will see Anele again, somehow, somewhere.. He seems too important and significant a character to just.. disappear from the story..

Who's jerry, btw?

[earthbrah]

Jerry is Jeremiah.



Lurch wrote:

There will be linkage from the last chapter of TLD to Anele and even further, perhaps, furtherest. Trust is what answers your inquiry, or suggested thinking about. Trust the Unknown

Trust, yes. Anele carried the burden of his birthright with him for a long time. Along with it, he also carried the fear of having failed his parents, or their hopes for him. Seems he trusted something for a long time to bear that burden.
We still don't know what his experience was in Andelain, but it's probably a good bet that he visited his parents. And, off the cuff, it seems that they themselves had some sort of sympathetic bond with forests and renewal--they did grow Salva Gildenborne.

But thinking about thresholds more broadly within these Last Chronicles, it seems a common issue. Many individuals are crossing them--TC back to life and healing his mind, Jeremiah and his return to lucidity, Stave and his tear for Galt, Linden and the blackening of the Staff... others?

The Land itself, and the Earth entire with it, stand on perhaps the greatest of thresholds: exist or be destroyed. And it's the crossing of thresholds by individuals that seems to be either aiding or assisting the Land and Earth in it's trot to either doom or continued life. Yet they continue to make decisions and take actions, the full consequences of which they themselves do not fully know. They trust in themselves, or in what they believe they are serving, and perform their dire acts. I applaud that in the characters, and in Donaldson. I'm sure he does a good bit of the same kind of trusting while writing.

[Zarathustra]

Earthbrah, I think you draw attention to a very interesting distinction--or perhaps the blurring of distinctions. Transitions are where the magic happens. That's where Paradox resides, at the boundary where two imcompatible states or "realms" touch and interact. Life/death, mind/body, literal/figurative, reality/fantasy, good/evil. I think you are correct to point out that Donaldson is exploring this mysterious borderland, and how the border is either well-defined and defended (with Laws or Wardens, for instance) or breaking down. And it seems he is challenging us with the question of whether or not that breakdown of thresholds is desirable or undesirable. On the one hand everyone assumes that they need defending, but on the other hand it is through breaking down these boundaries that "miracles" are made possible. The truth, I suspect, is in the paradox: the fact that there is a connection between two things that are fundamentally "apart." The co-dependency of two antithetical states of being, forever in opposition but also forever linked. A boundary [i.e. separate-ness] defined in virtue of where they touch [i.e. together-ness]. Indeed, the best word for such a pardox is threshold ... a boundary which can be crossed, the crossing of which implies a transformation or transcendence.

[lurch]

.. A door is a threshold..or at least a part of a door is the threshold..and Jerry by end of AATE makes reference to the door,,threshold, he created and eventually found the ability to cross thru..So..many fear Jerry's ability with creating these doors,,thresholds. Perhaps..its the Freedom..the access to terra incognito that fritens the Elohim on one hand and makes Foul drool with anticipation of controlling on the other hand. Thresholds...Thresholds suggests entrance to new..Yes lots of it..How about entrance to Old..Fantastic it was to Enter the Majestic Castles of the Viles..yes?..and what a big to do the author had with that Threshold. Something so far long ago, perhaps primal. ..down in the bedrock of things. Before the forestals.

So yea..opening doors..thresholds..seeing things differently..perceiving differently with the mind..Huxley's doors of perception. Basically..The Last Chrons has been about a Doctor..a healer..who had it all wrong. So..each " Threshold" is a step of and perhaps to a ..getting it right..so to speak. A " re-understanding_" of her situation has been taking place since Runes. Anele reminds us of all the healing,,re-generation, of the Land that Linden Entrusted to Hollian and Sunder . Anele is the embodiment of that deal. As we see..that deal made by Linden had problems over Time...like todays solution is going to fix everything in the future..yea rite! So..for me..in a way..the spirit of Linden when she made the deal with Anele's parents ,,is what Anele trusted and eventually lived up to. Again..there is this element of thing s from long long ago..still having effect..A subtle show of the Surreal notion,,that nothing really dies? A " threshold" to a new or different way of perception..for Linden and the reader..with TC already knowing this from the sentient rock. Talk about Threshold..sentient rock...??? ..now there is a perceptual threshold for all the readers to cross. ..Okay..maybe just the threshold of seeing all this as metaphor the author asks for. No death to that in the infinity of the Imagination.

[earthbrah]

And Jeremiah now bears Anele's gift of earthpower, or so we can assume. Though he expended it on the bone structure, the gift may still reside within him somewhere, somehow.

Doorways...Jeremiah can build them out of just about anything, and that can lead to just about anywhere. Anele himself was like a walking doorway into the past and the future. For a while there, I was thinking that Anele would somehow become a new forestal; now I see that as being rather unlikely. However, the knowledge he had of the forestals of old, and the gift he gave to Jeremiah seem like two doors in one, leading backwards and forwards. A small paradox in itself.

"When, through maturation or experience, a person's physical and mental systems cross critical thresholds of complexity, that person is thrown out of his or her comfortable previous state into a temporary but fertile period of chaos which heralds the appearance of a new stage of development … The natural response to this situation is confusion and disorientation, that is, chaos." (Allan Combs, The Radiance of Being, pp. 61-2)

Fertile chaos: Boy, does that ever describe the Land in its current state or what! Liminality, that space between two states or structures, is what I feel a good many of the characters are experiencing. And while in this space, everything is novel or new, in light of which the Ardent's appearance in AATE is very appropriate.

The whole trip through caverns ornate and majestic was itself like a liminal space. The entire company was enthralled by the residue of magic that lingered there. All that synesthesia they experienced is very chaotic and fertile at the same time.

[lurch]

" fertile chaos" ..not just the characters feeling it, but how about the reader?

: liminal" quite the suggestive of a reality that is neither the reality its in between...or....the Surreal..especially when in the same " coincidence" as " fertile chaos".