What Made The Third Chrons Possible?

Book 3 of the Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

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SkurjMaster
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Wurd, Wyrd, Word, Worm

Post by SkurjMaster »

I have been rereading selected parts of the First and Second Chrons with specific interest in this thread. Just some notes while keeping in mind the topic of this thread:

1) In the TIW it is mentioned that Kevin dreamed of the white gold despite the fact that it does not exist on the Earth in any form. How did he know about it? That lore of its existence had to come from somewhere. The Theomach? In any event, the pursuit of white gold stems from the very first Chrons and therefore the subsequent two defeats of Lord Foul in pursuit of the white gold have led to the Third Chrons.

2) In TOT Daphin retells Pitchwife's story of the Worm, but uses the term Wurd. She says that the Wurd awoke from its slumber and consumed stars and then settled down for a nap, at which point the Earth formed around it. However, she also calls the Elohim the Wurd as well. Are they separate? Are the cosmic Worm/Wurd and the Elohim/Wurd separate? If not, then this has important bearing in Infelice's claim that all of the Elohim will be consumed. What if it is not consumption as much as a rejoining? If they are separate but related, then the Wurd/Destiny aspect of existence implies that both the Cosmos and the Earth were always going to be destroyed anyway. Didn't the Kemper(?) wizard in TOT say that 'into each creation he must perforce place a small flaw' since perfection could not exist in an imperfect world? I think that the Elohim are the imperfection. They can be corrupted and can be used against the Earth.

3) If the above is correct, then Kastennessen is not so much the cause of the ruination of the Earth as he is the catalyst for it.

Just some thoughts.
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Post by Vraith »

And good thoughts.

on 1)...yes to your conclusion, pursuit of white gold is definitely part of getting to where we are. The good guys and the bad guys both need it to permanently solve their respective problems...and it is a threat to both, as well, of course, for the same reasons. I'm not really interested in "how do people know about white gold?" In a world of magic, such knowledge/discovery/understanding is, to me, just a natural outcome of their faculties/perceptions. [unless how they discovered it affects how it ends...but then its interesting for a different reason].

on 2)...yea, wurd/worm/elo are connected for sure. And the world WAS surely going to end. But there's a difference between dying naturally and being murdered [by LF for instance]. And a whole lot of stuff I don't feel like blathering about...it's probably repetitive anyway...but when I die, I suppose I'm "rejoining"...but "I" will still be dead, and I definitely don't want that...but I could be wrong, and it might be some kind of bliss/Nirvana/culmination.

But that, connected with 3) catalyst seems pretty good word. I think the shadow/corruption of the Elo, despite their claims and blames elsewhere, is they interpreted their role as to defend/preserve wurd/earth instead of promulgate/expand it. They acted like curators/librarians instead of teachers/scientists/artists. They guarded the castle, but ignored the Kingdom.
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Post by Horrim Carabal »

dlbpharmd wrote:I believe Kastanessen is the most important factor in bringing about the events of the 3rd Chronicles.
Agreed. I think many people here are still underestimating the mad Elohim. I believe the majority of the final book will be the main characters dealing with Kasty and his back-story.

Lord Foul is trying a new approach. Usually he is the mastermind with a few barely-independent tools i.e. Ravers at his command. This time he has an actual ALLY..Kasty. Though Foul is still the mastermind and is no doubt manipulating him...Kastenessen is the most powerful being Foul has ever used. And the Despiser is staying far in the background. Letting his allies take the lead this time. He's learned from his mistakes...
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Post by I'm Murrin »

To be fair, Foul barely did a thing in the 2nd Chrons, either. He set it rolling then summoned his victims, no further action required until the finale.
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Post by Horrim Carabal »

I'm Murrin wrote:To be fair, Foul barely did a thing in the 2nd Chrons, either. He set it rolling then summoned his victims, no further action required until the finale.
Yes but he was relying on the "heroes" to do his work for him. To make bad choices that lead to his aims. He was still fighting the last war, thinking that TC and Linden were Kevin Landwaster. But they're not. And they're not Elena, either.

He's finally gotten a clue in the Last Chrons. Re-read how he talks to Linden in RotE. He'd NEVER speak to her like that in the 2nd Chrons.

Now he knows the "heroes" can't be trusted to achieve his aims. He knows they will make odd, confounding choices, choices that can foil him.

Now he has Roger and he has Kasty. Powerful tools who are on his side. They may need prodding and manipulating, but they aren't heroes and they aren't barely-independent Raver lackeys. They're the closest thing to allies Foul has ever had.
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Post by dlbpharmd »

Kevin learned of white gold from Loric, who learned the story from either Damelon or Berek. Remember, Berek saw Linden's ring in FR, although he certainly didn't understand the significance of it. The Theomach probably told him about wild magic and white gold.
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Post by Vraith »

Horrim Carabal wrote: Now he has Roger and he has Kasty. Powerful tools who are on his side. They may need prodding and manipulating, but they aren't heroes and they aren't barely-independent Raver lackeys. They're the closest thing to allies Foul has ever had.
Roger is a piece of crap, he is a tool in every negative sense of the word you can think of, and I predict [someone remind me I did so, whether I'm right or wrong, once it's over] one important reason for the success of the good guys will be either A) his pure failure, or B) he finally finds a bit of strength, and that strength is rooted in his one fibre/last shred of "goodness" ...but the rest on Kasty here and your previous is excellent. LF did sit back a lot as Murrin pointed out...nevertheless Kasty is different.
He matters a lot...though, similar to Holt Fasner in GAP books I don't think we'll go deep into his "real story"...I hope we get some explicit stuff on his appointment and appointing in general though...
Cuz I think the key to his importance [and my previous statement, and the Elohim overall] is in your words, my emphasis, "underestimating the mad elohim."
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the difference between evidence and sources: whether they come from the horse's mouth or a horse's ass.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
the hyperbole is a beauty...for we are then allowed to say a little more than the truth...and language is more efficient when it goes beyond reality than when it stops short of it.
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Post by Vraith »

dlbpharmd wrote:Kevin learned of white gold from Loric, who learned the story from either Damelon or Berek. Remember, Berek saw Linden's ring in FR, although he certainly didn't understand the significance of it. The Theomach probably told him about wild magic and white gold.
Sorry for double post, but not really.
No, that's only true in Timeline #2.
The Old Lords knew about white gold in BOTH versions. History doesn't happen only 1 way. The Arch FORBIDS anything happening that would change the outcome of PREVIOUS events completely. Therefore, white gold had to be known about whether Linden went there or not, otherwise the Arch would have broken as soon as anyone realized what white gold was...cuz white gold changes everything if it was unknowable without time travel.
[spoiler]Sig-man, Libtard, Stupid piece of shit. change your text color to brown. Mr. Reliable, bullshit-slinging liarFucker-user.[/spoiler]
the difference between evidence and sources: whether they come from the horse's mouth or a horse's ass.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
the hyperbole is a beauty...for we are then allowed to say a little more than the truth...and language is more efficient when it goes beyond reality than when it stops short of it.
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Post by dlbpharmd »

That gets into the whole paradox of time argument, and that's why time travel sucks so much as a literary tool.

I just can't get my head around any other sequence of events that would have taught Berek about white gold (or the 7 Words, or the location of the One Tree, for that matter.)

Trying to think throught the ramifications of your post makes me go looney. ;)
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Post by Vraith »

dlbpharmd wrote:That gets into the whole paradox of time argument, and that's why time travel sucks so much as a literary tool.

I just can't get my head around any other sequence of events that would have taught Berek about white gold (or the 7 Words, or the location of the One Tree, for that matter.)

Trying to think throught the ramifications of your post makes me go looney. ;)
Heh! In general, I hate it too...for the paradox, and also because haven't we done enough of that???
OTOH, SRD at least gives us a rough "guiding principal." You can't change anything could ONLY have happened one way or changes too much. [so, in the real world you could go back and kill Hitler...IF WW2 would have happened pretty much like it did without him. If ONLY Hitler could make it happen, you kill him, the Arch breaks.]

I avoid the loonies by two methods:
If the author's internal "logic" seems consistent, I just trust them for the sake of the story.
If not, I make fun of them [like in another thread I just did to Kevin J. Anderson...though not about time travel.]
Still, I wish everyone would stop doing it even if SRD did it pretty well.
[spoiler]Sig-man, Libtard, Stupid piece of shit. change your text color to brown. Mr. Reliable, bullshit-slinging liarFucker-user.[/spoiler]
the difference between evidence and sources: whether they come from the horse's mouth or a horse's ass.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
the hyperbole is a beauty...for we are then allowed to say a little more than the truth...and language is more efficient when it goes beyond reality than when it stops short of it.
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Post by I'm Murrin »

SRD subscribes to the idea, though, that time never changes. That if a person travelled through time and went back into the past, then whatever they did always had happened. Hence Linden being the cause of the split in Melenkurion Skyweir and Berek's knowledge of White Gold. Hence Linden also being the reason Anele lost his Staff.

There are no alternate timelines in the Chrons.

(He fudges things a little so that the ending isn't predetermined, by drawing a distinction between past and future, so that the past is fixed but the "present" is a limit on time travel that is constantly moving into new territory.)
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Post by shadowbinding shoe »

Linden's meeting with Berek is not necessary. The Land is a place where prophetic dreams and intuitive extra-sensual understanding of the world is a given.

White Gold may not have been in the Land before Covenant entered it but Wild Magic was a very fundamental part of it and to those with eyes to see the deeper nature of the world it, and the White Gold ring would have been intuitively obvious.

And if we recall what Amok said in tIW it wasn't only the lords who knew about it. The Elohim, the Sandgorgons and probably others I can't recall all knew about it.

The timeline of the Chronicles was not predetermined. The Creator for example didn't know whether Covenant would prevent Foul from destroying his world and breaking free or not. Also, if Linden's visit to the past was known to Foul (as it should have if we assume a single predetermined timeline) he would not have believed he had a chance to win in the first and second chronicles. And of course the whole freedom of choice of ordinary mortals that the series has discussed endlessly wouldn't make any sense in such a world.
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Post by I'm Murrin »

Why would Foul know that Linden had travelled back in time? The time she travelled to was when he was most likely off in distant lands doing other things, as far as we know. The Land only really became interesting to him once Berek discovered Earthpower and the Council of Lords was formed. The King in Berek's time was possessed by a Raver, but the Ravers arose independantly, they haven't always been Foul's servants.

Regarding predetermined time: That's why I say Donaldson's fudging things. It only makes sense if the events of the third chrons always happened, too, but Donaldson wants to think it's not predetermined so he pretends that the "present" is an actual thing that carries on at the correct point no matter how people time travel and that the "future" doesn't exist until it happens. It's contradictory, but that's the model he's writing in.

And no-one can accurately see and predict the future anyway, though Foul and the Ur-Viles make good estimates. I don't know why you think the Creator at point A would know the future at point B before he's experienced it. If he had some knowledge of all time then he wouldn't have messed up the Land's Creation in the first place.
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Post by Vraith »

I'm Murrin wrote:, but Donaldson wants to think it's not predetermined so he pretends that the "present" is an actual thing that carries on at the correct point no matter how people time travel and that the "future" doesn't exist until it happens. It's contradictory, but that's the model he's writing in.
No, it isn't, not quite. The past is semi-flexible...or maybe it's better to say, analogically, that some stuff can be over-written, but some specific incidents are write-once. All the stuff you overwrite must still run correctly with the write-once, or the system crashes...permanently. [the Arch breaks].
[spoiler]Sig-man, Libtard, Stupid piece of shit. change your text color to brown. Mr. Reliable, bullshit-slinging liarFucker-user.[/spoiler]
the difference between evidence and sources: whether they come from the horse's mouth or a horse's ass.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
the hyperbole is a beauty...for we are then allowed to say a little more than the truth...and language is more efficient when it goes beyond reality than when it stops short of it.
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Post by shadowbinding shoe »

Vraith wrote:
I'm Murrin wrote:, but Donaldson wants to think it's not predetermined so he pretends that the "present" is an actual thing that carries on at the correct point no matter how people time travel and that the "future" doesn't exist until it happens. It's contradictory, but that's the model he's writing in.
No, it isn't, not quite. The past is semi-flexible...or maybe it's better to say, analogically, that some stuff can be over-written, but some specific incidents are write-once. All the stuff you overwrite must still run correctly with the write-once, or the system crashes...permanently. [the Arch breaks].
Foul seems to have the ability to perceive multiple timelines from the scene where Covenant witness the undestruction of Foul's Creche and his victory against Foul.
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Post by Vraith »

shadowbinding shoe wrote:
Vraith wrote:
I'm Murrin wrote:, but Donaldson wants to think it's not predetermined so he pretends that the "present" is an actual thing that carries on at the correct point no matter how people time travel and that the "future" doesn't exist until it happens. It's contradictory, but that's the model he's writing in.
No, it isn't, not quite. The past is semi-flexible...or maybe it's better to say, analogically, that some stuff can be over-written, but some specific incidents are write-once. All the stuff you overwrite must still run correctly with the write-once, or the system crashes...permanently. [the Arch breaks].
Foul seems to have the ability to perceive multiple timelines from the scene where Covenant witness the undestruction of Foul's Creche and his victory against Foul.
Looking forward, perhaps...at least in glimpses/possibilities...but lots of folk can do that. And look at LF's prophesies...they're always right-but-wrong when they occur. Because no one can see exactly...even TC as Timewarden sees multiples/options/branchings. But, IIRC, the incident you mention, it was one that might, potentially, have happened but never did...and the LF in the "vision" isn't seeing across time...isn't even real. It's the LF that might have been in that time if it had happened...and it's entirely in TC's head, not in the world.
[spoiler]Sig-man, Libtard, Stupid piece of shit. change your text color to brown. Mr. Reliable, bullshit-slinging liarFucker-user.[/spoiler]
the difference between evidence and sources: whether they come from the horse's mouth or a horse's ass.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
the hyperbole is a beauty...for we are then allowed to say a little more than the truth...and language is more efficient when it goes beyond reality than when it stops short of it.
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Post by Hashi Lebwohl »

Vraith wrote:No, it isn't, not quite. The past is semi-flexible...or maybe it's better to say, analogically, that some stuff can be over-written, but some specific incidents are write-once. All the stuff you overwrite must still run correctly with the write-once, or the system crashes...permanently. [the Arch breaks].
I concur--the past is changeable within a certain degree of freedom because some events are more central than others. Speeding up or slowing down Loric's forging of the krill by a week? Not a problem. Preventing Berek from forging the original Staff of Law? That could break the Arch.

Except for the hazads of more damage to the Arch and unearned knowledge, I wonder if Linden shouldn't risk going through another caesure into the future. The negative price of unearned knowledge might, if applied properly, wind up having a positive outcome.

Roger is completely corrupt and irredeemably insane. He is already dead but he doesn't know it yet. If he isn't careful, someone might use his sliver of Kastenessen's essence to imprison him in the Durance, presuming the Worm doesn't devour him for it first.

Foul has taken his tactics from The Second Chronicles to its logical conclusion--he has taken himself out of the equation entirely. Ironically, he has discovered Zen--through Non-Action he is hoping to gain his desired result. He didn't even set events in motion this time to make sure that no one is his tool and thus unusable for attaining his desires.
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Post by Horrim Carabal »

Hashi Lebwohl wrote: Foul has taken his tactics from The Second Chronicles to its logical conclusion--he has taken himself out of the equation entirely. Ironically, he has discovered Zen--through Non-Action he is hoping to gain his desired result. He didn't even set events in motion this time to make sure that no one is his tool and thus unusable for attaining his desires.
BINGO! Exactly, just what I was trying to say, but phrased more eloquently. It's actually a brilliant strategem on Foul's part.
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Fire

Post by SkurjMaster »

Horrim Carabal wrote:
dlbpharmd wrote:I believe Kastanessen is the most important factor in bringing about the events of the 3rd Chronicles.
Agreed. I think many people here are still underestimating the mad Elohim. I believe the majority of the final book will be the main characters dealing with Kasty and his back-story.

Lord Foul is trying a new approach. Usually he is the mastermind with a few barely-independent tools i.e. Ravers at his command. This time he has an actual ALLY..Kasty. Though Foul is still the mastermind and is no doubt manipulating him...Kastenessen is the most powerful being Foul has ever used. And the Despiser is staying far in the background. Letting his allies take the lead this time. He's learned from his mistakes...
Still rereading and thinking about what was said above. But I want to go back a little more. When Findail tells the tale of Kastenessen and his Appointment, he refuses to speak of the cause of the fire which Kastenessen was appointed to address. From the timeline given by Findail, that fire has been there for millenia. Didn't Foul know about it? What was its cause? Who caused it? If there was indeed a who, then they may still be out there. Kastenessen may be a catalyst, but there are implications of the unaddressed cause. What are the foundations of the firmament and how could that crack the shell of the Earth? Were the Skurj created from that fire? Is Kasty's destructive power derived from the fire that he capped?

I think that a previous poster was correct. Kasty becomes a front-and-center figure in the next book. Maybe Linden and Covenant will address Kasty by addressing the fire?
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Re: Fire

Post by Vraith »

SkurjMaster wrote: Were the Skurj created from that fire?
I'm pretty sure the skurj WERE that "fire." Don't you know what your own slaves were doing?? No wonder Kasty could break them out. :biggrin:

I suspect LF knew...it served his purpose to wait for Kasty to slowly go nuts, slowly break lose, and bring the skurj with him. It was perfect for him, allowing him to just whisper advice.
[spoiler]Sig-man, Libtard, Stupid piece of shit. change your text color to brown. Mr. Reliable, bullshit-slinging liarFucker-user.[/spoiler]
the difference between evidence and sources: whether they come from the horse's mouth or a horse's ass.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
the hyperbole is a beauty...for we are then allowed to say a little more than the truth...and language is more efficient when it goes beyond reality than when it stops short of it.
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