The Masters' simony

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

What have the Masters withheld from the people of the Land? Their birthright. The power of wood and stone. Like a certain church did once upon a time, the Masters have retained for themselves the moral power of their charges' society. In exchange for their own virtues they have made the Land's people pay the price of the meaning of their own lives. The Masters have, in other words, decided that only the Haruchai "Lords" (if you will) get to decide the outcome of the Land by their own valor or failure--they have horded this decision from the Land's natives.

This seems to me to indicate that the redemption of the Masters will turn to some extent on their returning to the people of the Land the important knowledge of wood and stone otherwise lost to name and use now. I feel like there might be something important stored in Revelstone that could serve such a talismanic role in TLD. However, I think more that the message encoded into Revelstone itself by the Giants of Seareach will play a revelatory role in this context. Reading the passage where Pitchwife (IIRC) remarks upon the glory of that message reminded me in retrospect of passages that SRD has reported as "foreshadowings" of Last Chronicles issues (like the horror the Cavewights threatened to raise mutated into SWMNBN).

[Iolanthe]

I'm going to have to read the last Chronicles again. I can remember only one instance of the ordinary people of the land appearing in the last Chronicles in real time, and that is at the beginning in the Stonedowners village. The ordinary people of the land are impotent to do anything, made so by the Masters. How can they learn in a few days what it took generations of their ancestors to learn over time? The Stonedown and Woodhelvin villages appear to have little contact with each other in the last Chronicles. Oh, I just remembered the fight near the Woodhelven where hurtloam was used and the Masters had to take the people to Revelstone so that they couldn't tell anyone else about it. Liand learned some of the uses of orcrest pretty quickly, but that was a minute part of the knowledge of the old Stonedowners.

[SkurjMaster]

Are Kevin's Wards completely lost at this point? Do the Haruchai still know where these were secreted? Maybe they could redeem themselves in part by finding and distributing them? Without the oath of peace, they might be easier to master.

[Vraith]

Are Kevin's Wards completely lost at this point? Do the Haruchai still know where these were secreted? Maybe they could redeem themselves in part by finding and distributing them? Without the oath of peace, they might be easier to master.

If they had years, or at least months and could get rid of the "Dirt," maybe...but with only days? It seems unlikely.

Similarly, to part of Mig's OP...there isn't time to return power/choice/decision to the people...that can only be done after the final confrontation [if they and ordinary people survive it].

The only thing they can do before that is change their minds, and pay with themselves...and not with "fight purely, win or lose is the same." That's just the same path/sacrifice they always follow. In some way...and I don't know how...they must do something different. Take up items of power/weapons themselves? Support Linden without qualms/quibbles or because TC told them to? Risk corruption, instead of avoiding that risk at all costs? I have no idea, really. But something.

[Krilly]

To me it seems they're witholding the freedom to be guilty. They're trying to be Masters of morality.

The haruchai think "Okay, so power fundamentally makes you guilty of either evil (misuse of power) or innaction (not using your power) so let's take all power away and make people impotent (and thus, innocent)."

TC learned the lessons of this kind of thinking helluva long time ago IN THE FIRST SERIES (see: Celebration of Spring, battle of so-and-so, etc) The haruchai are... umm... slow learners. (Except for you guys, Brinn, Cail, and Stave... you're cool )

The Masters greatly misinterpret how exactly Corruption was twice defeated. If they truly understood, they would know that only those with the capacity for evil can defeat Him and save the Land.

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

Remember how the Humbled are technically maimed to resemble the three Bloodguard who tried to directly fight Corruption (IIRC)? What if some of or most of the Masters actually turn from the cause of the Land? How endless is the Haruchai havoc, really?

[earthbrah]

Vraith wrote:

The only thing they can do before that is change their minds, and pay with themselves...and not with "fight purely, win or lose is the same." That's just the same path/sacrifice they always follow. In some way...and I don't know how...they must do something different. Take up items of power/weapons themselves?

I think the Haruchai have to release the restraint they've held over themselves for so long. Each Haruchai has the collective memory of its entire people, right? And if even one of the Bloodguard witnessed Kevin assembling his Wards, you can bet they know what and where they are. And I might further bet that they know how to use them as well. And if those things are possibly true, then they might also know it's time they let go of the need to cling to the purity of their service, that it's time to use magic themselves and straight DO what is necessary. Heck, they might even know what the message is that the Unhomed encoded into Revelstone...whatever the specifics, they will have to cross that self-imposed boundary or threshold they created and maintained for millennia.

[call11back]

I suspect that the Ranyhyn will force this issue with the Masters, either by entering the Land without warning or by forcing the Master to choose whether they will let the steeds enter.

[Zarathustra]

Mighara Sovmadhi, had you read an advanced copy? Your word choice in the title is oddly appropriate. I'm up to page 70 or so, so no major spoiler yet. But "simony" caught my eye. I'd never heard it before reading it in LD.

[Edit: nevermind. I just realized that was the chapter released on SRD's website. I never read it until now.]

[Billy G.]

I think Simony is a wrong choice of words here.

If you read the book of Acts, simony is trying to buy something (power of God, in biblical meaning) that can only be given freely to those who ask.

Spoiler

What Brinn accused the Humbled and the Masters of, was in effect the reverse of simony. Denying Earthpower to the Land's people. I don't however know the correct word for anti-simony. Maybe antisimony?

[Zarathustra]

I think the general idea is that people have a legacy of "transcendence," which should be their own in virtue of merely being born. And yet the Masters put themselves in charge of denying this transcendental heritage, when they have as little right to deny it as the Church has a right to deny you forgiveness without pay. It's not an exact parallel, but close.

[Vraith]

I think the general idea is that people have a legacy of "transcendence," which should be their own in virtue of merely being born. And yet the Masters put themselves in charge of denying this transcendental heritage, when they have as little right to deny it as the Church has a right to deny you forgiveness without pay. It's not an exact parallel, but close.

IIRC what I was thinking at the time, that's what I was trying to get at in another thread or two where this was discussed, only more clearly/succinctly stated.

Also, though, the next level up the hierarchy: The Master's are "buying" their own purity by the forbidding. [Well...they believe they are...they've ALWAYS done that for/in themselves, of course...they've just expanded the tax-base...heh...or tithe...to all the other Land-dwellers.]