Wayfriend wrote:It seems to me that, had they access to caesures and the Illearth Stone in the past, Loric would not have been able to defeat them.
The Harrow didn't seem to have a problem. Perhaps he had special knowledge that Loric didn't have, but I never thought of any of the Insquent as inherently more powerful than the highest of the Old Lords, especially against foes and powers of their own time.
Wayfriend wrote:If we presume that there was no Arch-breaking change of history, then we must assume the Demondim didn't have access to these things until Esmer moved them forward in time. (Which, since they were all destroyed, also created no Arch-breaking change of history.)
They may have been Lore-wise enough to know that breaking the Arch was a Bad Thing. They could have used the power wisely, just as Linden did when she was in the past. I don't think we can assume anything. I thought they were using the power of the Stone even in the past, before being transported by Esmer. If a caesure can transport Linden to that time, why can't a caesure be accessed from that time? A caesure mixes
all the moments of a particular location's past and future. Therefore, it must have some link to those moments. Granted, this seems to contradict what Liand said about caesures only appearing in the last 100 or so years, if they mix up every moment. I'm not entirely convinced that Donaldson's conception of time travel is free of paradox ... but maybe that's thematically fitting.
DrPaul wrote: ... it could be that the Demondim of Loric's time knew how to make and use caesures, but had their own reasons for refraining from using this knowledge.
I'm pretty sure the only thing powerful (and chaotic) enough to make a caesure is wild magic ... white gold. Not even Esmer could create one. If I remember correctly, he found one for Linden (in Runes) and brought it to her. Then Linden created one to get back. So only Linden and Joan ever created any.
berk peter wrote:
As an asside - you guys seem to have almost encyclopedic memories for detail relating to the 'history of the Land' prior to TC's first summoning by Drool. A case in point would be your remembering that it was Loric who defeated the Demondim.
Are you talking about the Viles? He was called Loric Vilesilencer, after all. You really only have to remember is his name. That's not to detract from your memory, but to say that you shouldn't be so hard on yourself. There wasn't really very much else said about this detail (unless my memory is also at fault).
wayfriend wrote:
The ur-viles self-loathing was in part due to their being unnatural, created beings. It also was due to Foul steering them a bit in that direction, I believe.
I thought it was because they were freakin' disgusting, and knew it. Their faces were only huge nostrils! Would you date a lady like that? Really, I think we're supposed to understand them as just being ugly, which is why they were transformed physically at the end; their redemption wasn't making peace with their forms, but becoming "objectively" beautiful. This makes sense. They didn't have the advantage of natural selection and sexual reproduction to force upon them the necessity of being attractive to an opposite sex in order to procreate. There were no environmental pressures--represented in the choices of billions of lady ur-viles--to shape them.
I'm not sure beauty is as subjective as we like to claim. It's pretty obvious.
Vraith wrote:
The ur-Viles [and Demondim] self-loathing was PARTLY cuz they were created...but that relates to what they were created AS, not just THAT they were created. Sorta like when humans [historically, men with their muscles, fists, whips, pointy sticks and whiny need to be in charge mostly] start teaching girls, practically from the moment of birth, to loath their bodily functions [like menstruation] and other shit [[don't be fat, it'll make you unattractive, don't be attractive cuz then we can't control ourselves and it's your fault]], until they internalize it.
Heh, well that's one way to look at it. How do you know that women don't themselves find their own periods gross and uncomfortable? Are you saying that they thought periods were awesome and fun until men taught them otherwise? Who taught the men? Satan? Lots of people have an aversion to blood, including women. It doesn’t have to be a male domination plot.
As I noted above, the way we look is due to selective pressures facilitated by sexual reproduction. Women have shaped guys just as much as guys have shaped women. It’s mutual. There’s no victim here. Women have taught guys what they like just as much as we've taught them what we like. I think most beautiful people know they are beautiful, and those of us who are fat or otherwise deficient, know it without anyone telling us.
Ur-viles didn't need it, either. Remember, we're talking about a world where a tree's natural health and beauty was an objective fact accessed via Healthsense. There was no room for subjective differences, here. It's one thing to say that "joy is in the ears that hear," but that doesn't really ring true in a place where sickness and corruption is an objective fact.
Another paradox, I suppose.
Joe Biden … putting the Dem in dementia since (at least) 2020.