The last tree

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

I feel like there will be a Last Tree in Salva Gildenbourne. The One Tree was the source of the One Forest, so much so that the orcrest of the One Rock had its parallel in the High Wood of the ante-Sunbane Land. As the One Tree dies, as the ancient forbidding of the Forestals finally darkens and fails, doesn't it stand to reason that this process will converge towards a lone tree standing against the world's end?

[SkurjMaster]

I think that text in AATE indicates that stone is the key.

'Wood is too brief' (or some such statement).

[Vraith]

Lot's of places/points/conversation that could go here...

But I just want to say:

I like that image/symbol no matter the truth/accuracy/real ending.

[Mega Fauna Blitzkrieg]

I have been wondering about the...is it lormilliar? The lilanrill version of orcrest. They state that it is from the one tree in some indirect fashion. It comes from the one tree's babies or something?

But if the one tree is over on an island that nobody has been to in 3,000 years, etc etc? I know he didn't intend to write more than 3 books to begin with, so is this just an inconsistency based on expanding the story/world, and in the original series we should infer the one tree was in the one forest, most likely dead now, in the past?

Maybe the Elohim who became the Colossus brought some cuttings from the one tree and planted them in the land? Or maybe the 'one tree' isn't some sort of sacred tree in and of itself based on tree DNA, but is more of a concept based on how much lore and earthpower and life and etc is in that particular tree? In that case, maybe the Forestals at their prime were able to manufacture lesser 'one trees' all over the land, that for simplicity's sake, people refer to as offshoots of the one tree?

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

I have been wondering about the...is it lormilliar? The lilanrill version of orcrest. They state that it is from the one tree in some indirect fashion. It comes from the one tree's babies or something?

Some guy, forgive me for not recalling his name atm, says to Covenant that orcrest is a piece of the One Rock which is the heart of the Earth or something (this is in TIW). I think in the GI SRD ended up saying that the One Rock was more like an abstract rock than a concrete one (forgive the pun, not intended). Granted, we've seen the One Tree at its Isle, but we've also seen Sunstone... Something about the relationship between the Worm and the Law of Death versus the One Tree as--the living form of the Law of Life? Could that be part of why Covenant's resurrection woke the Worm?

I mean, it couldn't have just been the massive expenditure of power involved in the act, could it? (I might have argued about this in another thread...) Compare the holocausts at Ridjeck Thome and the end of the Banefire, how much force Covenant unleashed in those instances, yet the Worm did not awaken.

EDIT 2: Or, even better, the Despiser's own attempt to use Covenant's ring to destroy Time at the end of WGW--how did *that* not rouse the Worm from its slumber, already recently troubled by the battle with its aura on the Isle of the One Tree?

(Maybe *that's* how wild magic can break the Arch of Time: precisely because of its capacity to rouse the Worm somehow.)

--Continuing original post:

But anyway, maybe the One Tree is like the Form of the Tree, and the One Forest was the forest of all the trees that participated in that Form. And only when united did they truly thereof participate, wherefore the continuous degradation of the forests of the Land over time corresponds, essentially, to the failure of the One Tree itself. The Theomach's victory was not, as the Elohim claim, the origin of their world's ruin, but the ravage of the Land's treescapes.

Ominously, to me, this suggests that the Sunbane was nonetheless triumphant in a way that Linden has never healed, and which was only partly redeemed by the work of Sunder and Hollian. For this was the paramount desecration of Law and Earthpower ever unleashed by the Despiser, wasn't it? And by its might, the ancient forests were almost utterly slain. "Thousands of thousands," i.e. millions, in Garroting Deep, for example.

(But what about Giant Woods?)

EDIT: How plausible is it to suggest that the protagonists will end up going north, to Giant Woods, after the Sarangrave (part 1 at least) and, arguably, Gravin Threndor/Andelain (part 2?)?

[Mega Fauna Blitzkrieg]

I think Tohrm is the one who said Orcrest is from the one rock. If SRD already said the one rock is more of a concept, then the one tree is probably the same. Even though we have seen it.

But, Berek didn't transplant the one tree onto that island to save it, so it must be more of a concept to account for the presence of it/it's off spring in the land proper.

Although, I really think he probably imagined the one tree to be in the land and dead from ravers/deforesting. It says the creator guided Berek into shaping the staff of law, in a way which implies he had access to the tree that didn't involve world travel.

We now know that isn't the case, but still. Concept! So on that note, there probably could be a new One Tree inside Salva Gildenbourne(?) or the potential for one.

Did Giant Woods survive into the third trilogy? I don't have a map handy.

[Mega Fauna Blitzkrieg]

I would also be inclined to think the worm wasn't roused by just a large amount of power, but rather the fundamental raping of life and death that was started by Troy and Elena, and finished by Linden.

Although, I really think someone says that Foul cannot rouse the worm himself.

[DrPaul]

Did Giant Woods survive into the third trilogy? I don't have a map handy.

The short answer is yes.

The longer answer is that if you compare the maps of the Land in the First and Second Chronicles, you see that Giant Woods is narrower in the latter, but still exists. This must be because, as the only one of the great forests east of Landsdrop, most of it was out of reach of the Sunbane. Nothing, as far as we know, has happened between the Second and Last Chronicles that would have adversely affected the Giant Woods.

What is not mentioned (IIRC) thus far in the Last Chronicles is whether Sunder and Hollian (perhaps helped by others - the Waynhim, the Haruchai, the Giants of the Search before they went Home) used seeds, saplings and animals from Giant Woods to establish and stock Salva Gildenbourne, and otherwise restore the Land after the Sunbane.

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

This was one of the only predictions I made that even remotely panned out, it seems