The Oath of Peace

[peter]

As an aside from a thread examining the relationship between TC and Elena ("Elena coming on to Thomas") and stemming from a posting by Shadowbinding Shoe about the Oath of Peace being an example of how Laws could be 'created' in the Land, and sometimes by the people of the Land, I would like to examine the OoP in a bit more depth.

I will start bt saying that it was a dissapointment to me in my first reading of the Chrons when it transpired that the Oath was the thing that was hindering the academics of the Lorserat's understanding of the Wards (correct me if I'm wrong on this but I think that is how it went). IIRC the upshot of this was the abandoning of the pursuit of knowledge via the lore contained in the Wards, the maintainance of the Oath and the search for a new path whereby truth and knowledge could be revealed ( and we all know where that ended).

For me, the Oath was an integral part of who the people of the Land were - but so indeed was the search for the lore of the Wards. To abandon it did not sit well with me - and the results also tend to back up that it was the wrong descision. I do not propose that the OoP should have been sacrificed (although this seems to have been the long term result anyway since the Claves distorted ideas were so far from the Oath as to be unrecognisable), but surely an accomodation of sorts could have been atempted - one that did not seal of a huge body of invaluable knowledge from the people forever. What was it about the Oath that made it irreconcileable with the knowledge of Kevins Wards anyway? Men of Peace can study the tools of War everyday without becoming corrupted by them. Does anyone else see this decision to abandon the Wards as a fundamental mistake whose ramifications are still being dealt with into the 3rd Chrons all those thousands of years later?

[Fist and Faith]

The third response to my Let's hear it for Mhoram! thread, by Drinny, began a debate about this. My own position is clear. Heh.

What was it about the Oath that made it irreconcileable with the knowledge of Kevins Wards anyway? Men of Peace can study the tools of War everyday without becoming corrupted by them.

What made them irreconcibeable is that the Oath made those studying the Wards unable to understand them. It was only by abandoning the Oath - briefly; only for the moment - that Mhoram was able to understand and use the Wards. The problem being, would he be strong enough to return to the Oath every time he had need to abandon it? He was not so sure. And even if he could, could every other user? That's a lot to gamble on. Another Ritual of Desecration would surely come along when the system of defense depended on that kind of risk time and again.

And more important, Mhoram thought a better way of preserving, loving, and living would be one that used other means entirely. If they were invisible and undetectable to enemies... Or if they had infinitely strong shields. Or...

[peter]

but who can say what would have come out of Kevins Lore in the four that were uninvestigated - perhaps the very things you postulate Fist. And is not the abandoning of Kevins Lore akin to our saying " we're giving up on scientific R and D because it's thrown up some preety bad stuff" - what kind of forward planning is that; who can say what we may find in the future for the good of mankind.

(ps Just made the mental connection of 'Seven Wards - Seven Words'. Wsa there a relationship between each of the 7 words of power and its corresponding ward, or is that just 'the 7 thing' being used again).

[Fist and Faith]

but who can say what would have come out of Kevins Lore in the four that were uninvestigated

We know what came out of them. As far as the person who knew them better than anyone else ever did, who was arguably the most powerful Lord ever, they did not contain a better answer than the Ritual of Desecration. Even the Power of Command wasn't a better option.

And is not the abandoning of Kevins Lore akin to our saying " we're giving up on scientific R and D because it's thrown up some preety bad stuff" - what kind of forward planning is that; who can say what we may find in the future for the good of mankind.

The problem is that our scientific R and D does not require that we embrace extremely violent emotions. If, say, we could only make a nuclear power plant by becoming enraged at somebody. We could pick the enemy du jour, get enraged at them, then, instead of directing the power at them, direct it at a container that would store it and send it out to our homes. I'm pretty sure the people directing the power would, in their rage, direct it at the enemy after not very long.

[wayfriend]

Did the Lord's abandon the Oath? Not that I recall.

Assuredly, they abandoned the old Lord's lore, as presented in the Wards.

But I don't think that they also abandoned the Oath.

"I am Mhoram son of Variol, High Lord by the choice of the Council. I declare that from this day forth we will not devote ourselves to any Lore which precludes Peace. We will gain lore of our own - we will strive and quest and learn until we have found a lore in which the Oath of Peace and the preservation of the Land live together. Hear me, you people! We will serve Earthfriendship in a new way."

In TWL, it is suggested that the Oath was maintained until the point that the Clave became Raver-infested.

His Ravers shared his recovery; and he did not act overtly against the Land until samadhi Sheol had contrived his way into the Council, had begun its perversion, until several generations of na-Mhorams, each cunningly mastered by samadhi, had brought the Clave under Lord Foul's sway.

Slowly, the Oath of Peace was abandoned; slowly, the ideals of the Clave were altered.

If it's any help, I agree with your comments, peter, about the Oath being essential to the people of the Land. Abandoning it would not sit well with me, either.

Stupid Raver.

[Vraith]

The problem that allows the Raver to distort, and eventually cause the loss of the Oath, though, is an inherent implication in the nature of Mhoram's ideal.
The old Lore doesn't preclude peace entire. It only contains other potentials if fully understood. The Oath of Peace, though, guarantees that knowledge will be incomplete and insufficient to defend and serve the earth as long as beings like LF and Ravers, and dark Banes like the Illearth Stone exist.

[Fist and Faith]

wf, I don't see anybody saying they abandoned the Oath? They abandoned Kevin's Lore, because they would not abandon the Oath, and the two were incompatible.

The old Lore doesn't preclude peace entire. It only contains other potentials if fully understood. The Oath of Peace, though, guarantees that knowledge will be incomplete and insufficient to defend and serve the earth as long as beings like LF and Ravers, and dark Banes like the Illearth Stone exist.

The Oath did more than that, I think. Even non-violent aspects of Kevin's Lore were beyond their understanding because of it. When each Ward was mastered, it pointed to the next. They couldn't even master the 1st Ward, and only stumbled onto the 2nd accidentally. They shut part of themselves off from many possibilities of the Lore that was developed by people who had not sworn Peace so strongly.

[wayfriend]

I misread peters base post.

I can only add, then, some feelings on the side of Fist. First, I think that Mhoram had no reason to believe that a new lore with the Oath would be any less efficacious than the old lore was without it. He wanted a new way, but I don't think he ever thought the end result would be inferior. In a way, he was throwing away the shackles that said, we aren't as good as the Old Lords and never will be. They were, and he knew it.

So I disagree with Vraith's assessment that the Oath guarantees insufficiency. It created insufficiency only when hobbled by an old lore that did not fit.

And I disagree that Mhoram had ever discarded the Oath, even briefly. The sculpture showed him that the Oath was in the way, and Trell showed him how that barrier could be surmounted. He discovered that there was, indeed, a way that included both power and peace. The problem was that the Wards did not go that way.

Unless I am reading that wrong.

[shadowbinding shoe]

Interesting subject, Peter.

It's not the best of analogies but I think the Desecration ability has similarities to a berserker's mode. All restraint is cast aside and your passions control you. People who uphold the Oath of Peace on the other hand shackle their passions so that Peace would not be broken no matter what the provocation.

If your magic is fueled by emotion the first system would be much more powerful. If it is fueled by dedication the second system would be the better one.

Would Kevin's Lore have been superior in preventing the Sun-Bane? Could it detect its corruption better? I'm not sure. It's said somewhere in the Second Chronicles that Kevin's Lore became irrelevant after Foul changed the nature and magic of the Land with his Sunbane.


Edit to add - I think I finally explained to myself what happened during "Mhoram's Victory". Mhoram's power levels during that battle always seemed remarkable to me. If the Old Lords had such power and more, how did they become so hard pressed by Foul's armies? But if what Mhoram displayed wasn't just Old Lord's usual magic levels but a perfect meeting of the Old and the New, passion and dedication, I can see how his feat was unique, probably shared only with Berek and Covenant in some ways.

[Vraith]

Interesting subject, Peter.

It's not the best of analogies but I think the Desecration ability has similarities to a berserker's mode. All restraint is cast aside and your passions control you. People who uphold the Oath of Peace on the other hand shackle their passions so that Peace would not be broken no matter what the provocation.

If your magic is fueled by emotion the first system would be much more powerful. If it is fueled by dedication the second system would be the better one.

Would Kevin's Lore have been superior in preventing the Sun-Bane? Could it detect its corruption better? I'm not sure. It's said somewhere in the Second Chronicles that Kevin's Lore became irrelevant after Foul changed the nature and magic of the Land with his Sunbane.


Edit to add - I think I finally explained to myself what happened during "Mhoram's Victory". Mhoram's power levels during that battle always seemed remarkable to me. If the Old Lords had such power and more, how did they become so hard pressed by Foul's armies? But if what Mhoram displayed wasn't just Old Lord's usual magic levels but a perfect meeting of the Old and the New, passion and dedication, I can see how his feat was unique, probably shared only with Berek and Covenant in some ways.

I'm only quoting yours, but commenting on others, too.
First, F&F, yes that's so...it precluded other parts, too, because it is all one continuous thing...if one insists on only doing addition in math, one loses not only those things directly named subtraction, multiplication, division, but also those things that are mixed.
WF...I hate to say this cuz even when I disagree your interpretations have think-value...but you are wrong on this. The Oath of Peace DOES in itself equal insufficiency. It isn't only that the old Lore is incompatible/unknowable with the Oath...which it is...it is 3 other things. Even without the limit of the Oath the old Lore was insufficient AND whatever new/good things could be discovered by pursuing the Oath cannot be fulfilled as long as the literal violation of the earth embodied by LF is present in the world. Because he is there, everything is subject to pollution. AND [same as what I was agreeing with Fist basically] no knowledge/power will ever be sufficient if one refuses to know anything that does not align with the predetermined end.

But Shoe, you're basically correct about Mhoram's power...what he did, what made it spectacular, is that he combined the necessity of passion to achieve power with a dedication to purpose that acknowledged despair and REFUSED the option on a personal level. No "system" can do that [though it can encourage it, it can weed out those most likely to succumb but only with clear sight and knowledge to see it in every case]. Kevin, instead of what he did, should have showed everyone everything he knew...and let everyone fight it out every day, face to face, forever instead of trying to destroy the invulnerable.
He only made things worse.
OTOH, Mhoram's victory only shows a method of battle. The old lords lost for the same reason Hile Troy did...LF is just too damn big. Every time you try to equal his scale you are playing right into his hands. Because he never runs out of resources.

[Ananda]

We never find out what the replacement lore was, do we? The blood power assuredly was not the replacement for the wards but rather a raver inspired lore that replaced the replacement? If that's so, are there artifacts of power from that lost age of power somewhere? If we ever found out more of what happened in those 4000 years, then it would be easier to make some comparisons.

[wayfriend]

No, Ananda, it's never really described - it is morphed by the Clavers before we ever get to see how it turned out. All we know is that they used their lore to heal the Land.

Mhoram, in his Victory, is indeed a superlative figure, who could stand with Kevin and Berek and not feel short. From this one act, we can imagine what Mhoram would have been like if he had always known what he knew at that moment. A figure of tremendous power in service to the Land.

And he did it while holding his Oath. If there's any dount that the Oath in and of itself restrains power, Mhoram's Victory should dispell that claim.

Vraith: remember, up until A Knowledge of Power, part of the problem was that people had misapplied the Oath.

From this, Mhoram extracted the understanding that the Oath of Peace has been, well, misapplied. It is literally a prescription for behavior; but it has been taken as a proscription against passion. Yet passion is power, as Covenant so often demonstrates. (And power is dangerous: therefore the Bloodguard knowingly, and the people of the Land unwittingly, have suppressed their access to it.) Mhoram learned to find his own version of "the eye of the paradox": the point where both passion and control can be affirmed.

Mhoram's great insight most definitely does *not* involve "a willingness to harm, hate, or do violence." Rather it involves a willingness or ability to make choices which are not ruled or controlled by passion (e.g. hate, anger, despair, or fear), and then to act on those choices with absolute passion.

(11/24/2004)

Mhoram's realization wasn't that the Oath had to be cast aside. Rather, it was a rediscovery of how the Oath should be used ... and how it should not be used. By doing this, self-crippling restraints to one's power are eliminated. Going forward, the Oath (with this new understanding of it) is not an impediment.

[Fist and Faith]

And, so, Mhoram did what Kevin could not. Or, rather, what Kevin could not attempt. Kevin saw the overwhelming force of the enemy, and he despaired. He hated them. He feared nothing he tried could possibly bring victory. His self-recrimination was overwhelming. "I am a failure." He could no longer fight. He chose the Ritual of Desecration.

OTOH is Mhoram. He saw the overwhelming force of the enemy. But he didn't act out of the fears and hatred Kevin did. His motivation was love.

As he grasped the utterness of his plight, he turned inward, retreated into himself as if he were fleeing. There he looked the end of all his hopes and all his Landservice in the face, and found that its scarred, terrible visage no longer appalled him. He was a fighter, a man born to fight for the Land. As long as something for which he could fight remained, he was impervious to terror. And something did remain; while he lived, at least one flame of love for the Land still burned. He could fight for that.

You can't fail when you fight for love, as long as you don't stop loving. Great SRD quote in my sig.

[Zarathustra]

I think all of you are right to emphasize different aspects of this issue, though perhaps Wayfriend comes closest to the most accurate answer ... for now (remember, we're not done yet). I was thinking about the same GI quote, too, where the Oath has been misapplied by the people of the Land. SRD seems to be saying that the Oath is not necessarily an impediment (though he could be saying that to avoid spoilers).

Despite WF's technical accuracy, Vraith is also correct to say that for the people of the Land during the 1st Chrons, it most certainly was an impediment. And he's right about the reasons, too: Evil/Despite exists, but they had allowed the Oath to become a denial of it. The problem was one of authenticity. Denying or ignoring that Evil/Despite exists--and that it exists within each of us--is denying or ignoring reality. Sure, the people of the Land were aware of Foul, but they didn't appreciate his necessity, the fact that Destruction is simply the other half of Creation. They tried to deny and repress their own messy, negative emotions. They tried to make themselves not even feel these passions. But these are part of what make us human (sadly). Foul is part of all of us. You can't wish it away with a moral system or code of ethics which denies what makes us human.

And all of this is dramatized by Covenant's own character arc. His refusal to use his ring was a refusal of his passion. He took it even farther: because even positive emotions can lead to death/destruction (e.g. unrealistic hopes creating the kind of naivete that leads one to be careless of his own health .... like he saw in the lepresorium (sp?)), he repressed his capacity to love and hope. He became discipline/restraint to the extreme. A survival machine. And then as soon as he got to the Land, he flipped to the opposite side of the passion/control spectrum and raped Lena. This loss of control steeled him against losing control again, reinforcing his pre-Land attitude of repressing his passions, as if they were the problem. His various solutions at the end of each Chronicles are attempts at some sort of compromise between these two.

Covenant takes his own kind of "oath of peace" by the end of the 2nd Chronicles, refusing to fight Foul directly with power. However, this solution was insufficient, otherwise there wouldn't be a need for the Last Chronicles, obviously. So I suspect that Vraith will probably be vindicated by the time all this is over with. You can't refuse to fight evil. You can't make peace with evil. But at the same time, you've got to accept that it's real, and you can't beat it. That's a hell of a paradox!

[Trying to be a spoiler-free as possible ....]

Linden seems to be pointing the way towards a different solution than Mhoram with the negation of the maxim, "Good cannot be achieved by evil means." This seems to imply that sometimes making a choice out of passion can also produce positive results, unlike Donaldson's, "Rather it involves a willingness or ability to make choices which are not ruled or controlled by passion (e.g. hate, anger, despair, or fear), and then to act on those choices with absolute passion." She's not making her core choices by reason or discipline or control. Her choices (at least the two big things she decides to do*) are entirely driven by emotion ... and yet she is apparently walking the correct path and opening up desirable opportunities.

*

Spoiler

The two big choices she makes are to seek Jeremiah and to bring back Covenant. These aren't rational choices, but emotional ones. She pursues those choices with varying degrees of passion and control, after she has made the choices, but at the root they are irrational and quite possibly catastrophic ... possibilities which she ignores in order to continue pursuing them.

[wayfriend]

IMO, the idea that one should not make choices based on passion, but then should be executed with all passion, has to do with the proper way to weild power. Earthpower, wild magic, even martial skill.

It could be a mistake to claim that this proscription should be generalized to all choices. No one can make any decision based on passions? We would not be human. How could we choose whom to love, how could we choose to care for our children, how could we choose to show compassion or mercy or devotion to someone?

Possibly we need to consider that Mhoram's insight is not as generalized as we might believe without more careful consideration.

Perhaps it has to do specifically with how we fight. Or that it is a proscription against negative emotions (hate, fear, despair) but not positive ones (love, devotion, hope).

Or perhaps it just doesn't apply to decisions which aren't about weilding power and developing lore.

Anything worth saving won't be destroyed by choices like that is an argument that says you can follow your heart rather than obey cold logic. Even when the fate of the world is at stake. We have to be human. We have to trust that the world was designed to accomodate human decisions, because the alternative is a world we could not accept.

[caamora]

It always seemed to me that the OoP was overkill and the result was the absence of knowledge from earlier generations.

The people of the Land were so afraid of another RoD that they went to the other extreme to restrain people's actions.

Knowledge requires freedom. The OoP almost forbade that freedom. While it's purpose was good and honorable, it was still too restrictive to allow growth.

[Zarathustra]

While it's purpose was good and honorable, it was still too restrictive to allow growth.

Great point. That's kind of what I was getting at by noting how destruction is part of creation. Preservation is stagnation. You can't grow without some amount of destruction. In this sense, the OoP is limiting no matter if it's applied correctly (Mhoram) or incorrectly (1st Chrons pre-Mhoram's victory). So maybe Vraith doesn't have to wait for the end to be vindicated afterall.

[shadowbinding shoe]

IMO, the idea that one should not make choices based on passion, but then should be executed with all passion, has to do with the proper way to weild power. Earthpower, wild magic, even martial skill.

It could be a mistake to claim that this proscription should be generalized to all choices. No one can make any decision based on passions? We would not be human. How could we choose whom to love, how could we choose to care for our children, how could we choose to show compassion or mercy or devotion to someone?

Possibly we need to consider that Mhoram's insight is not as generalized as we might believe without more careful consideration.

Perhaps it has to do specifically with how we fight. Or that it is a proscription against negative emotions (hate, fear, despair) but not positive ones (love, devotion, hope).

Or perhaps it just doesn't apply to decisions which aren't about weilding power and developing lore.

Anything worth saving won't be destroyed by choices like that is an argument that says you can follow your heart rather than obey cold logic. Even when the fate of the world is at stake. We have to be human. We have to trust that the world was designed to accomodate human decisions, because the alternative is a world we could not accept.

This is true in Donaldson's world of the Land but it is eminently untrue in our own world. We might not feel bad about ourselves for making such choices but the outside world would not validate our choice a lot of the time. So does this moral has any applicability outside a fictional world with a benevolent Creator like the Land?

[Fist and Faith]

It's really a shame. The First Chrons was the only Chrons he intended to write. When he was done, Lester Del Rey said, "You should write a sequel, where blah blah blah happens." And SRD said, "No. If I was gonna write a sequel, it wouldn't be like that. If I was gonna write a sequel, it would be..."

Point being, the story was over, and the last thing we were told was that Mhoram, a guy of immeasurable insight, strength, and kindness, was going to develop "a lore in which the Oath of Peace and the preservation of the Land live together." It was going to work. The Land was going to see greater glory than it ever had before. Because such a thing is possible. And Mhoram could make it happen.

Then LDR had to open his freakin' mouth.

[Vraith]

While it's purpose was good and honorable, it was still too restrictive to allow growth.

Great point. That's kind of what I was getting at by noting how destruction is part of creation. Preservation is stagnation. You can't grow without some amount of destruction. In this sense, the OoP is limiting no matter if it's applied correctly (Mhoram) or incorrectly (1st Chrons pre-Mhoram's victory). So maybe Vraith doesn't have to wait for the end to be vindicated afterall.[

On the bolded part, I only did that cuz I like it when people agree with me. seriously, though, yea caamora, yea, Z, except also POST-mhoram as an ideological stance. because IF ones pure stance is right, only good could come it...which it didn't...it was either wrong or incomplete or [my preference] both AND impossible to achieve for mere material mortals. A number of people have gone to great lengths to generate mathematical visual structures that are absolutely stunning...but could never be material structures.
I think it is because aspects of ethics and aesthetics can flow across lines in description...but not in kind of realness. It is related to the 'necessity of freedom.' For LF and the Creator in their natural realms it isn't a question...they simply are so. For simple matter and energy it isn't one either...they simply cannot have it. For those between [us] it is the point of struggle/contention.
But, more on topic [maybe] I once wrote in a lit. crit. paper [I was literally inventing a critical form/approach...might have mentioned this elsewhere] that what people really needed to tap into was "passionate disinterest."
Like the title "Fatal Revenant" it has several possible interpretations, and I mean all of them on purpose. At first I thought this was oppositional to what WF quoted SRD as saying...now, I don't think so.