Who She is (an argument)
Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2012 5:38 pm
Premise 1. She is eternal. For Her, all Her time is united.
Premise 2. She recognizes the women She devours in some way. They seem to recognize Her.
Conjecture: She is not only all the women She already has devoured, but also in some way all those whom She will devour in the future. Therefore, Her true name would be the names of all women who have been or will be devoured by Her. Telling Her this would convert Her awareness back into an eternal state, a state that Time cannot very well contain. So it is for Her as it was for Linden: "In this instance her mind cannot be distinguished from the Arch" (not the exact quote, I think, but close enough; and it's from FR, somewhere in the Theomach's dialogue).
Prediction: Linden's reaction to "Diassomer Mininderain" was like her reaction to the Sunbane. What did Linden have to do to overcome the Sunbane? Enmesh herself in its essence. Fight it from the inside. If Linden is the one to deal with Her, then maybe plunging herself into that hell will be part of the way she does this. Remember, Linden hungers for power at times, as She does (else Esmer would not have heeded Covenant's warning against letting Her get the ring). Power to ravage entire worlds, or in Linden's case remake them, if at times arrogantly, in her own image. But Linden can learn to shed her dire obsession with power, the last vestige, I think perhaps, of what she didn't learn the entire lesson of last time she sojourned in the Land. Even her self-Despiteful sense of failure is a reflection of the fact that she feels powerless to stop the Despiser.
As Covenant has shown, it is possible to reconcile might and humility. Have you ever noticed that the Creator calls Covenant his son back at the end of The Power That Preserves? Now this could just be how old men sometimes indiscriminately refer to younger men as "son" (as in, "Son, what're you doin'?"), but I doubt SRD would use the word in that sense. Now SRD himself wrote the dedication for FR, I think it is, to a son, "in whom I am well pleased" or something is what SRD says, which is a paraquote of the New Testament where it says that the First Person of the Trinity referred to Jesus as, "My beloved son, in Whom I am well pleased."
Liand, a shepherd figure after a fashion, even refers to Covenant's resurrection as an incarnation. Not a reincarnation. Which former word is just the word for the Son of God-cum-Man, even.
Covenant had eternal sight, and then he underwent what in Christian theology is denoted kenosis, or an emptying of his eternal essence into a finite present. It's no coincidence, perhaps, that Linden compares the Timewarden's mind to a fractured grail.
Covenant was right at the end of White Gold Wielder: he had no reason to use power any more. But he's right to use power in the Last Chronicles, too. But that's because his power now is totally different in nature from the corruptive kind. It's the power of guilt to redeem itself. Unlike Earthpower or Vile-light or any number of other forms of magic, even white gold's fire, it can't be perverted because it is by definition the power of undoing perversion.
Linden has to understand that she is to comport herself so that "in my weakness is my strength made perfect" or whatever it says in some epistle or something in the New Testament. She has to learn to reconcile might and humility like Covenant did. Morinmoss redeemed the covenant; the covenant needs to be mediated by a man with leprosy (Covenant says he needs to be a leper), a form of weakness that the Creator's adopted son turned into strength during the triumph over Corruption at the end of The Power That Preserves.
The only outcome of the normal exercise of power is entropy, the depletion of the concentration of energy. Now there is a kind of martial arts known as aikido, and it is based decidedly on an almost literal application of the Taoist conception of wu wei to fighting. There's at least a chance SRD knows of these concepts, or at least has a personal sense of them, supposing them to be objectively real. A power based on weakness is a paradox (wild magic as a law unto itself). The Law is the Land's Creator's self-discipline. "Eternity is powerless," or something, Covenant talks like that one time, I remember. So maybe the solution to entropy is to embrace a kind of eternal kenotic power, some metaphysical transcendence. Find a way for the Land to be real and surreal at the same time.
Linden has to believe that she won't die in the end. She's living her entire death in the death of the Land on the premise that she's dead in the real world. She doesn't stop to consider the significance of her wounds being healed on transition to the Land. She thinks she's dead, she decides the fate of the Land's Earth on the basis of this deep assumption that she has on that very important level basically already failed. No wonder all her choices conduce to ruin: she assumes this deep powerlessness inside herself, and doesn't try to embrace it. She doesn't reconcile herself with her inner Despiser, doesn't learn to yield like a crucifixion under the Despiser's rage channeled like the eternal sun through the white gold ring. So the Land ends up a reflection of her inner state where she believes she's dead: overwhelmed by forces that defy her will so completely that even her most innocent lover's and mother's passions can be subverted to iniquity.
But if she saves the Land somehow, the Creator can maybe, just maybe save her back on Earth, and Jeremiah there, too, just as he saved Covenant. Or at least Jeremiah (that would be pretty sweet).
And maybe "Diassomer Mininderain" was the name in the Land of a woman from our Earth who the man in the ochre robe knew? Maybe Linden can return "Diassomer Mininderain" to Her home (just imagine that that woman is in a catatonic schizophrenic state in the "real world"). To contradict my earlier suggestion, maybe Her true name is the name She had on our Earth.
Premise 2. She recognizes the women She devours in some way. They seem to recognize Her.
Conjecture: She is not only all the women She already has devoured, but also in some way all those whom She will devour in the future. Therefore, Her true name would be the names of all women who have been or will be devoured by Her. Telling Her this would convert Her awareness back into an eternal state, a state that Time cannot very well contain. So it is for Her as it was for Linden: "In this instance her mind cannot be distinguished from the Arch" (not the exact quote, I think, but close enough; and it's from FR, somewhere in the Theomach's dialogue).
Prediction: Linden's reaction to "Diassomer Mininderain" was like her reaction to the Sunbane. What did Linden have to do to overcome the Sunbane? Enmesh herself in its essence. Fight it from the inside. If Linden is the one to deal with Her, then maybe plunging herself into that hell will be part of the way she does this. Remember, Linden hungers for power at times, as She does (else Esmer would not have heeded Covenant's warning against letting Her get the ring). Power to ravage entire worlds, or in Linden's case remake them, if at times arrogantly, in her own image. But Linden can learn to shed her dire obsession with power, the last vestige, I think perhaps, of what she didn't learn the entire lesson of last time she sojourned in the Land. Even her self-Despiteful sense of failure is a reflection of the fact that she feels powerless to stop the Despiser.
As Covenant has shown, it is possible to reconcile might and humility. Have you ever noticed that the Creator calls Covenant his son back at the end of The Power That Preserves? Now this could just be how old men sometimes indiscriminately refer to younger men as "son" (as in, "Son, what're you doin'?"), but I doubt SRD would use the word in that sense. Now SRD himself wrote the dedication for FR, I think it is, to a son, "in whom I am well pleased" or something is what SRD says, which is a paraquote of the New Testament where it says that the First Person of the Trinity referred to Jesus as, "My beloved son, in Whom I am well pleased."
Liand, a shepherd figure after a fashion, even refers to Covenant's resurrection as an incarnation. Not a reincarnation. Which former word is just the word for the Son of God-cum-Man, even.
Covenant had eternal sight, and then he underwent what in Christian theology is denoted kenosis, or an emptying of his eternal essence into a finite present. It's no coincidence, perhaps, that Linden compares the Timewarden's mind to a fractured grail.
Covenant was right at the end of White Gold Wielder: he had no reason to use power any more. But he's right to use power in the Last Chronicles, too. But that's because his power now is totally different in nature from the corruptive kind. It's the power of guilt to redeem itself. Unlike Earthpower or Vile-light or any number of other forms of magic, even white gold's fire, it can't be perverted because it is by definition the power of undoing perversion.
Linden has to understand that she is to comport herself so that "in my weakness is my strength made perfect" or whatever it says in some epistle or something in the New Testament. She has to learn to reconcile might and humility like Covenant did. Morinmoss redeemed the covenant; the covenant needs to be mediated by a man with leprosy (Covenant says he needs to be a leper), a form of weakness that the Creator's adopted son turned into strength during the triumph over Corruption at the end of The Power That Preserves.
The only outcome of the normal exercise of power is entropy, the depletion of the concentration of energy. Now there is a kind of martial arts known as aikido, and it is based decidedly on an almost literal application of the Taoist conception of wu wei to fighting. There's at least a chance SRD knows of these concepts, or at least has a personal sense of them, supposing them to be objectively real. A power based on weakness is a paradox (wild magic as a law unto itself). The Law is the Land's Creator's self-discipline. "Eternity is powerless," or something, Covenant talks like that one time, I remember. So maybe the solution to entropy is to embrace a kind of eternal kenotic power, some metaphysical transcendence. Find a way for the Land to be real and surreal at the same time.
Linden has to believe that she won't die in the end. She's living her entire death in the death of the Land on the premise that she's dead in the real world. She doesn't stop to consider the significance of her wounds being healed on transition to the Land. She thinks she's dead, she decides the fate of the Land's Earth on the basis of this deep assumption that she has on that very important level basically already failed. No wonder all her choices conduce to ruin: she assumes this deep powerlessness inside herself, and doesn't try to embrace it. She doesn't reconcile herself with her inner Despiser, doesn't learn to yield like a crucifixion under the Despiser's rage channeled like the eternal sun through the white gold ring. So the Land ends up a reflection of her inner state where she believes she's dead: overwhelmed by forces that defy her will so completely that even her most innocent lover's and mother's passions can be subverted to iniquity.
But if she saves the Land somehow, the Creator can maybe, just maybe save her back on Earth, and Jeremiah there, too, just as he saved Covenant. Or at least Jeremiah (that would be pretty sweet).
And maybe "Diassomer Mininderain" was the name in the Land of a woman from our Earth who the man in the ochre robe knew? Maybe Linden can return "Diassomer Mininderain" to Her home (just imagine that that woman is in a catatonic schizophrenic state in the "real world"). To contradict my earlier suggestion, maybe Her true name is the name She had on our Earth.
This image would certainly make sense of Linden's fate being written in water.