Two Cosmologies for AATE readers
Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2011 9:26 pm
[For background on this thread, see Wayfriend's excellent thread here.]
Once more you can blame wayfriend for this post. It seems most of my long posts originate in wayfriend's scholarship.
What if the Worm of the World’s End is Real?
In this take on the Worm of the World’s End I use elements from the different creation myths to attempt to weave a coherent narrative. I only use what I know from the 1st and 2nd Chronicles and realise that there may be extra information that has arisen in RotE and FR (I am only halfway through FR at the moment) that contradicts or renders these speculations beside the point.
My starting premise is that the Worm is real.
Here is how I would tell the story: the Creator makes a rainbow to please his children. (The rainbow is the Arch of Time.) He is angry when he finds that his shadow brother has marred his creation. While he tries to fix it his children find the rainbow and pass through the wound into a dark universe. There they fill the universe with the light and brightness of the stars.
The Creator out of anger casts his shadow brother beneath the Arch of Time thus imprisoning him in the same universe as his children. He fixes the Arch thus sealing in both his shadow brother and his children (I take a liberty here because in the story that Foamfollower tells TC the Creator tears down the rainbow). Now he cannot reach through the Arch or free his children because in doing so he will also free his brother.
The shadow brother is the Worm of the World’s End. In the universe beneath the Arch of Time he begins to devour the bright children. The children are powerful so there is a price for this. The Worm becomes sleepy and curls up into a ball. As it rests the power of the Creator’s children continues to work and the Earth of the Land is formed and all its myriad inhabitants.
Two types of beings are different though: the Elohim and Lord Foul. These are the direct offspring of the union of the stars and the Worm. They are the conscious elements of Creation and Destruction. Prior to the Worm devouring the children both of the elements of Creation and Destruction were unconscious. The Worm was unconscious Destruction and the children/stars were unconscious Creation. (It may be that the Creator contained both creation and destruction and so was conscious, if unaware or forgetful of his shadow aspect.)
Neither LF nor the Elohim can survive if the Worm wakes up, both will revert to unconsciousness. This is where White Gold/Wild Magic comes in. White Gold is an alloy unknown in the universe of the Land. It represents the mixture of creation and destruction necessary to make something new. It is the Creator’s power in the universe. At the end of the 2nd Chronicles Thomas Covenant realises that he is White Gold, that he contains the power of to create something new and so he becomes the keystone to the Arch. He is an alloy of creation and destruction.
For either the Elohim or Lord Foul to survive they must hold White Gold in their possession when the Worm wakes up. If they do they will survive and be able to break the Arch of Time. Interestingly, we can speculate that the Creator might equally fear whoever survives because there is no difference between all-powerful arrogance and all-powerful despite, both are evil. White Gold in the hands of Lord Foul or the Elohim is unearned power. It will lead to untamed creation or untamed destruction which both lead to chaos.
This version only works if Findail is lying when he says, in the cavern of the One Tree, that waking the Worm will break the Arch and free LF. He has reason to lie if the waking of the Worm means the end of the Elohim (and LF). In this telling of the story of the Worm, the Arch would not be threatened by the Worm waking up because the Worm and the Arch are two separate things.
Let me know what you think.
u.
[EDIT: to fix link]
Once more you can blame wayfriend for this post. It seems most of my long posts originate in wayfriend's scholarship.
What if the Worm of the World’s End is Real?
In this take on the Worm of the World’s End I use elements from the different creation myths to attempt to weave a coherent narrative. I only use what I know from the 1st and 2nd Chronicles and realise that there may be extra information that has arisen in RotE and FR (I am only halfway through FR at the moment) that contradicts or renders these speculations beside the point.
My starting premise is that the Worm is real.
Here is how I would tell the story: the Creator makes a rainbow to please his children. (The rainbow is the Arch of Time.) He is angry when he finds that his shadow brother has marred his creation. While he tries to fix it his children find the rainbow and pass through the wound into a dark universe. There they fill the universe with the light and brightness of the stars.
The Creator out of anger casts his shadow brother beneath the Arch of Time thus imprisoning him in the same universe as his children. He fixes the Arch thus sealing in both his shadow brother and his children (I take a liberty here because in the story that Foamfollower tells TC the Creator tears down the rainbow). Now he cannot reach through the Arch or free his children because in doing so he will also free his brother.
The shadow brother is the Worm of the World’s End. In the universe beneath the Arch of Time he begins to devour the bright children. The children are powerful so there is a price for this. The Worm becomes sleepy and curls up into a ball. As it rests the power of the Creator’s children continues to work and the Earth of the Land is formed and all its myriad inhabitants.
Two types of beings are different though: the Elohim and Lord Foul. These are the direct offspring of the union of the stars and the Worm. They are the conscious elements of Creation and Destruction. Prior to the Worm devouring the children both of the elements of Creation and Destruction were unconscious. The Worm was unconscious Destruction and the children/stars were unconscious Creation. (It may be that the Creator contained both creation and destruction and so was conscious, if unaware or forgetful of his shadow aspect.)
Neither LF nor the Elohim can survive if the Worm wakes up, both will revert to unconsciousness. This is where White Gold/Wild Magic comes in. White Gold is an alloy unknown in the universe of the Land. It represents the mixture of creation and destruction necessary to make something new. It is the Creator’s power in the universe. At the end of the 2nd Chronicles Thomas Covenant realises that he is White Gold, that he contains the power of to create something new and so he becomes the keystone to the Arch. He is an alloy of creation and destruction.
For either the Elohim or Lord Foul to survive they must hold White Gold in their possession when the Worm wakes up. If they do they will survive and be able to break the Arch of Time. Interestingly, we can speculate that the Creator might equally fear whoever survives because there is no difference between all-powerful arrogance and all-powerful despite, both are evil. White Gold in the hands of Lord Foul or the Elohim is unearned power. It will lead to untamed creation or untamed destruction which both lead to chaos.
This version only works if Findail is lying when he says, in the cavern of the One Tree, that waking the Worm will break the Arch and free LF. He has reason to lie if the waking of the Worm means the end of the Elohim (and LF). In this telling of the story of the Worm, the Arch would not be threatened by the Worm waking up because the Worm and the Arch are two separate things.
Let me know what you think.
u.
[EDIT: to fix link]