Why do the Haruchai always get everything wrong!

[peter]

Don't get me wrong because I love the Haruchai more than any other 'peoples' in the whole of the Chrons - but I'm beginning to question whether SRD does. Why is it that these tough, resolute and absolutely dependable people continuousely make the wrong decisions (exept maybe in the case of Linden for all the THOOLAH members here ) about anything and everything they are involved with. First they abandon the Lords at their time of greatest need in the 1st Chrons , then they take anabsolute dislike and mistrustfull stance toward Linden in the second. Once again they dump the questors in their hour of need in order to go off chasing tail and then crown it all by taking an instruction to protect Rvelstone and turning it on it's head and taking over the entire Land to become it's 'Masters' and divesting the people of their acess to the Magic of the Land that is thier rightfull inheritance. Finally they refuse to accept their mistake and once again trat Linden as a pariah and anyone who associates with here as a potential enemy of the state. What is it with these guys SRD. Give them a break - surely they must be able to get something right at least once in the 10 books of the Chrons!

[ussusimiel]

..then they take anabsolute dislike and mistrustfull stance toward Linden in the second. ....once again trat Linden as a pariah and anyone who associates with here as a potential enemy of the state.

It is well known that SRD doesn't like THOOLAH (He has threatened to take names after all )

I am now beginning to see that the original members of THOOLAH (even before there was a THOOLAH) were the Haruchai, so this may be the source of SRD's dislike. But, just because it's 'his story' doesn't mean that he can't be mistaken, as he obviously is in this case

THOOLAH!

u.

[shadowbinding shoe]

From the 'Land is a metaphor to visitors' issues' perspective you can say this makes a lot of sense.

To Covenant they must represent fanatical duty to his absent/mad wife as well as to his sickened body. To Linden, in the 2nd chronicle, the twisted sense of familial duty her parents left her with and the resultant confrontational type of medicine she practiced, and in the 3rd chronicle, her futile care of the maddened cult members.

Both Covenant and Linden don't like these facets of their lives very much and you see the result in the resultant Haruchai they dream up.

From the in-story perspective, I think the central theme is that they lack the ability to give their love and therefore their dedication to the Land and the good things in it is flawed. What do Covenant's and Linden character arcs tell us besides how essential it is to be at peace with yourself and not hold anything back from your friends to be triumphant in the Land. The self sufficient, ever so reserved Haruchai just don't cut it in Donaldson's world.

[peter]

I'm going to make a prediction that by the end of the 3rd Chrons the H will have redeemed themselves in full. I think that underneath it all SRD bhas great affection for them with all their hubris and stiff wrong-headedness. That their self-doubt is damaging - especially in the face of their need to demonstate beyond normal levels of dependability and capableness hardly needs saying but unable to give love? I think Haruchi love would be a dangerous and unpredictable beast and any withholding on this score would be more for the protection of the recipient than inability on their part. The Haruchai serve. The Haruchai suffice.

[shadowbinding shoe]

I'm going to make a prediction that by the end of the 3rd Chrons the H will have redeemed themselves in full. I think that underneath it all SRD bhas great affection for them with all their hubris and stiff wrong-headedness. That their self-doubt is damaging - especially in the face of their need to demonstate beyond normal levels of dependability and capableness hardly needs saying but unable to give love? I think Haruchi love would be a dangerous and unpredictable beast and any withholding on this score would be more for the protection of the recipient than inability on their part. The Haruchai serve. The Haruchai suffice.

I think it is no accident that of all the peoples we met in the Land, the Haruchai are the only ones without women and children. This unique monastic lifestyle they choice for 7000+ years is supposed to tell us something.

[Vraith]

I'm going to make a prediction that by the end of the 3rd Chrons the H will have redeemed themselves in full. I think that underneath it all SRD bhas great affection for them with all their hubris and stiff wrong-headedness. That their self-doubt is damaging - especially in the face of their need to demonstate beyond normal levels of dependability and capableness hardly needs saying but unable to give love? I think Haruchi love would be a dangerous and unpredictable beast and any withholding on this score would be more for the protection of the recipient than inability on their part. The Haruchai serve. The Haruchai suffice.

I think it is no accident that of all the peoples we met in the Land, the Haruchai are the only ones without women and children. This unique monastic lifestyle they choice for 7000+ years is supposed to tell us something.

I've probably talked before on it, so won't say anything other than
I'm sure peter's right, the Har. are going to be redeemed [and they surely need it].
But SS...that's not really true, I don't think. It was true of the Bloodguard for what....about 1000-1500 years. We know the bonds between Har. men, women, and children are extremely strong, potent. [That's the thing the Bloodguard miss most due to their vow.] We only meet a small portion, away from home. Soldiers in the field, so to speak. In their home, they are disciplined...the environment makes it necessary...but not monastic from the text we have.

[peter]

But what we do know of their lives up in their mountain fastness is that they are 'strong loined and prolific'. 'Gilden fire' tells of the continuous rivalry between the two Haruchai clans and the instantly joined fight that occurs if two Haruchi, one from each clan, meet on the snow covered terrain. Bannor's wife had been dead for two millenia when Covenant, aghast at the revelation, asked him how he survived. The cost to the Haruchai of meeting their self-imposed standards is beyond comprehension by human standards - they are beyond judgement.

[ussusimiel]

I've just finished a reread of the 1st and 2nd Chronicles and to fill out the corners I'm reading Gilden-Fire (damn, the writing is so fluid and clean!). I was struck by the passage that describes the making of the Vow, the response of Earthpower and Kevin's reaction:

(From Korik's perspective)

Like the Lord Mhoram in the later age, Kevin was at times gifted or blighted with presciences; and he treated the Vow as if it proferred disaster. He insisted strangely that the Haruchai had maimed themselves....

The idea of the Vow maiming the Bloodguard prefigures Foul's maiming of them and also the self-maiming of the Humbled.

What intrigued me mostly about this part was the response of Earthpower. It responded to the passion of the Haruchai:

And when they brought their Vow around full circle, sealing it so that there was no escape, the rocks on which they stood thundered, and fire ran through them, sealing their bones to the promise they had made.

Here, I think for the first time, I am starting to see that Earthpower itself is not an innocent bystander. Or if it is, it is the kind of innocence, that TC writes about, that is essentially impotent against Despite. Here Earthpower actively enmeshes the Haruchai in an impossible situation. (It may be something similar with the Giants and the Ranyhyn.)

This makes me feel less judgemental towards the Haruchai. They, like the Land, want to believe that passion alone suffices. It doesn't and until they learn that they are always going to fail.

u.

[peter]

But what do they have to offer *exept* that passion. The Haruchai are who they are; they will always work within the strictures of their own limitations and to expect more of them than they can deliver will always result in their failing (and their incomprehension as to why they have failed or latterly even that they have failed at all.) You *have* to love them. Bannor might be a dour bastard but when the chips are down it's him I want by my side!

[Vraith]

I disagree, at least as I'm interpreting the recent comments. They are in deep denial/sublimation of their passion. They know they have/feel it...how can they not?...but they mis-blame the passion for their, and most everyone else's, failures/corruption. They have "learned" that their strength is a weakness...but failed to learn that weakness is strength.
In a way, for them, failure is global...yet all success is local.
There are many examples of this in their interpretations/lessons from: Brinn, Cail, Stave, Kevin, Mhoram, Linden, TC, the Illearth fragment trio, etc....even in their relationship with the Rhanyhyn, and defeats by the Insequent.

[ussusimiel]

I disagree, at least as I'm interpreting the recent comments. They are in deep denial/sublimation of their passion. They know they have/feel it...how can they not?...but they mis-blame the passion for their, and most everyone else's, failures/corruption. They have "learned" that their strength is a weakness...but failed to learn that weakness is strength.
In a way, for them, failure is global...yet all success is local.
There are many examples of this in their interpretations/lessons from: Brinn, Cail, Stave, Kevin, Mhoram, Linden, TC, the Illearth fragment trio, etc....even in their relationship with the Rhanyhyn, and defeats by the Insequent.

I agree (I think), although you may be disagreeing with me, so I'm not quite sure where that leaves me. Evolving, or degrading or something!

The Haruchai have fundamentally refused to learn, at every turn. Personally, I thought that there was a softening at the end of WGW, but SRD really turned that around in the Last Chrons. It has been said many times that they do not know how to forgive. They only know how to judge. They only know passion; they have no sense of compassion. Frailty, weakness, provides the flexibility necessary for growth. Too much rigidity hinders or prevents this.

u.

[peter]

I'm sure I have said this above but my money absolutely remains on the Haruchai pulling it out of the bag befor the end of Chrons 3. I'm sure you have read AATE u. and will know what I refer to when I say we saw a major development in the Haruchai's 'rites of passage' toward self-compassion and normal 'human' dignity in that book. Absolutly in opposition to what I said above (:D) I think we have witnessed a turning point in the deveopment of the Haruchai from which they can never retreat or return. I'm sure they, themselves, will be the better for it but I'm just not quite so sure they will be as interesting to read about when their 'Haruchainess' has been stripped away from them as SRD seems hell-bent on doing.

[Vraith]

I'm sure I have said this above but my money absolutely remains on the Haruchai pulling it out of the bag befor the end of Chrons 3.

I too expect that [I think I've said it in a couple threads before, almost for sure in the predictions thread]...and I'll be disappointed if it doesn't happen. I suspected it for many reasons...some textual, some external...almost from the beginning of the LC's. But the moment Stave spoke for Linden to the Masters, I became nearly certain. He is the final key in the line of the particular pivoting Har. we've seen before. His son's choice is evidence.

I'm pretty sure lot's, maybe nearly all of us, think so.

[ussusimiel]

I'm sure you have read AATE u. and will know what I refer to when I say we saw a major development in the Haruchai's 'rites of passage' toward self-compassion and normal 'human' dignity in that book.

I struggled my way through AATE, so I'd appreciate it, peter, if you were either able to quote the passage or give me a chapter or page reference. (I know I missed lots of stuff due to the 'gritted teeth' nature of my reading experience )

I too think that the Haruchai will pull it out of the bag. It's their last chance, so they'd better! I also agree that it will change our relationship with them, but since the series is ending, this is the best time for SRD to do it.

u.

[peter]

As we seem pretty much alone in this thread at present I'll risk a spoiler.

What I was refering to was the instance of the death of Stave's son (Galt was it) where we saw Stave display more emotion in one passage than the entire Haruchai/Bloodguard peoples had collectively shown in all the books put together to date.

Was Staves defying the Haruchai collective a sea change in the Haruchai 'state' - I don't know. Why did the experience of the Horserite not translate itself through the Haruchai mindspeak to the other Haruchai such that they too were of Staves opinion regarding the way The Chosen should be dealt with. This is the way it normally works for them so yes - something essentially different did occur here. But in other ways Stave's behaviour was Haruchai down to the bone. No Haruchai would ever go against his judgement of what was right just to appease the feeling of the collective - it just had never happened before that one member thought differently to the rest about a given issue. When that circumstance arose it was a forgone conclusion that Haruchai intransigence would never allow for the consensus approach to kick in.

I've struggled as well with the LC's u., particularly with AATE. Again I hope for a culmination that will tie it all up satisfactorily at least.

I had forgotten about Galt's change of heart at the moment of his death Vraith. This is perhaps (for the reasons I give above) more significant than Staves rejection of the Masters at the end of book one. This truly is a Haruchai going against the collective for reasons of trust alone. As you say it is difficult not to see this progresing as the story reaches it's culmination in The Last Dark.

[Iolanthe]

Stave doesn't appear to have shared his experience at the horserite with the others as they were taken by surprise when he announced his allegiance to Linden, and he soon learnt to shut off his mind from the others, although he could still "hear" them. Perhaps he is a one-off, although as you say, Galt's choice of death did go against the grain.

[Vraith]

I assume Stave, while speaking aloud for the benefit of others present, was also sharing the experiences/basis of his decisions with the Har. mentally.
But they have reason to doubt, anyway. He has failed, he was under the influence of another power, etc. Notice: they do not deny him completely, they heed him in part: this is where things begin the change, it is he who does it...peter, yes...he both defies and is. [AND becoming]. In a way, stealing from Frank Herbert, "More haruchai than the haruchai." It's how they work: a collective evolving out of singularities. Bannor was a singlularity [he doesn't go HOME...who goes to the Ramen], and Cail, and Brinn, and now Stave...the "strange attractors" if you like that better.

That choice "for trust alone..." I think also reinvigorated/reestablished/ deepened Stave's sense of himself enabling his resistance of Infelice later...this is also going to come back/imply for the whole of the Har....watch it come back in Last.