Kevin's Watch

[Have posted this here because it has potential spoiler implications if posted in the '1st and 2nd Chrons' forums, relating as it does to a quote from TLC.]

[Thanks to Lurch for drawing my attention to the passage which had totally gone over my head untill he raised it in his thread on 'the riddle'.]

Here's the quote which is to be found in Chapter 7, page 143:-

After all it was only a cliff. It was not the cunning subterfuge and malice of the Demondim, seething to mask the caesure which gave them access to the Illearth Stone.

This seems a massively important piece of information to me, casually dropped into an otherwise unrelated passage pertaining to malachite and the investigation of it's use in the construction of Jeremiah's fane. First we have the information that it was the Demundim that unearthed the Stone and not Drool with Foul's aid as I had always supposed [I'm sure we were told or at least led to believe this in earlier books]. Secondly - and surely of massive import as to how we are to understand the internal logic of the historical development of the Land - we are informed that the Demondim had knowledge, and use, of caesure's tens of thousands of years before Joan was ever even thought of in the Land. What other uses did they make of the caesure; where did they go - to what remote historical corner of the Land - in order to find the Stone and who put it there in the first place; Who has been doing what behind the scenes with these caesure's that we have not been told about; that, like Lurch's riddle, we must see [or not as the case may be] for ourselves?

Pete, re your first point, I think SRD is almost certainly referring to the demondim horde that besieges Revelstone having access to at least a fragment of the Illearth stone, as described in Fatal Revenant, rather than it being they (rather than Drool) who unearthed the stone in the First Chrons.

Ahhh! Not the first time I have got the total wrong end of the stick on the Chrons - or the last I suspect!

Just one point - in looking at the Glossary in TLD the Demondim are described as 'creatures created by Viles; creators of ur-viles and Waynhim' [Donaldsons capitols, not mine {why no capitol U in ur-viles}]. There is no mention here of cavewights which are described in the same glossary as 'evil creatures existing under Mount Thunder'.

Were the Cavewights not 'demondim spawn'? - I had always assumed they were. Were they still creations of Foul [as I believe the Viles were - though on current form I wonder if I have any true understanding of what is going on in the Chrons at all! ]

The Cavewights are natural creatures, and not the spawn of the Viles or the Demomdim. The last book describes their having families and children.

How the Demondim had a caesure is anyone's guess. Esmer may have given it to them when he summoned them forward in time.

The Demondim merely accessed the Illearth Stone where it was buried before Drool found it. Because they did not move it or change it, it created no problem with Time.

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. 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.)

Wayfriend's post seems pretty close to the mark. I don't recall whether SRD made this explicit, but I formed the impression in TROTE that the Demondim were accessing the power of the Illearth Stone without having to physically access the Stone itself.

Also, as far as we can deduce from TROTE and FR, the Demondim who were conveyed via a caesure, firstly to the time when Linden received the Staff of Law from the Waynhim, and then to the time of the main events in TLC, did not necessarily have the knowledge or the means to make and use caesures before they were conveyed through time by one. Being lore-crafty creatures, they were probably able to quickly work out ways to work with the caesure after they had encountered it.

There are other possibilities (and there are a lot of unanswered questions about the Demondim, their capabilities and their motives which give us scope to speculate). For example, 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. Alternatively, Loric himself may have had the lore to counter their use of caesures. There is a lot in the backstory to the Chronicles where our imaginations have free rein.

berk peter wrote: Were the Cavewights not 'demondim spawn'? - I had always assumed they were. Were they still creations of Foul [as I believe the Viles were - though on current form I wonder if I have any true understanding of what is going on in the Chrons at all! ]

The Cavies were natural, as WF already mentioned.
The Viles were NOT creations of LF.
They were ancient, good, and wise, "Lofty" even...before LF came to the Land. .
I assumed the the Demondim didn't create the ceasura...they were given it and just manipulated it, but that's speculation I don't recall the text specifying.

They didn't physically have the Stone ever, that's sure...I assumed they were "channeling" it from the time between its unearthing and TC's explosion of it...again, I'm not sure if the text specifies or not.

Then the ur-viles self loathing [I'm sure some if it had to do with being created beings somewhere] was to do with being created by the Demondim, not by Foul? And yes - now I remember the quote about the Viles being 'Lofty' etc. Things get more complicated. I seem to remember having always assumed all 'evil' in the Land stemmed from LF as it's generating scource [sort of like our 'the Devil'] Were then, the ravers, the Illearth Stone, and other deep banes, extant forms of evil even before Foul's coming to the Land {which I had assumed from creation muth number 1 was at the very time of Creation}.

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. There is so much historical detail scattered throughout the Chrons that surely it would now be a worthwhile exercise gathering it into a chronological account - particularly now we have the 'full story' to relate it to. I would love to see this material gathered and displayed such that we could place say, the Haruchai's meeting with the Isequent against the setting of what was occuring in the Land at the time etc.

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.

And after you read the Chronicles a dozen more times, and dissect it once or twice, and talk about it for about ten years in this forum (2 more months!), you'll remember quite a bit, too.

berk peter wrote:Then the ur-viles self loathing [I'm sure some if it had to do with being created beings somewhere] was to do with being created by the Demondim, not by Foul? And yes - now I remember the quote about the Viles being 'Lofty' etc. Things get more complicated. I seem to remember having always assumed all 'evil' in the Land stemmed from LF as it's generating scource [sort of like our 'the Devil'] Were then, the ravers, the Illearth Stone, and other deep banes, extant forms of evil even before Foul's coming to the Land {which I had assumed from creation muth number 1 was at the very time of Creation}.

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. There is so much historical detail scattered throughout the Chrons that surely it would now be a worthwhile exercise gathering it into a chronological account - particularly now we have the 'full story' to relate it to. I would love to see this material gathered and displayed such that we could place say, the Haruchai's meeting with the Isequent against the setting of what was occuring in the Land at the time etc.

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.
The Raver [IIRC] whispered to the Viles...btw, it is the Viles that Loric took down, maybe the Demondim, too but I don't recall for sure...One of the things the Raver whispered had to do with their forms...the Viles were basically bodiless...so they made the Demondim who were partly physical, but not really "alive," more like "animated." [I think it might even be said/implied that their physical parts were made of pieces of corpses...thing that USED to be alive]. Then came the ur-Viles as an attempt by the Demondim...somewhere in that process, those beings started loathing not only themselves, their forms, their unnaturalness, but ALSO the beings that were natural, "living," etc. [[and in that mix, some suggestion that, at least for the ur-Viles, LF had convinced/promised them that in his service/with his help, they could eventually be redeemed.]]

I'm almost positive the text somewhere says flat out that LF did NOT create the Ravers.

There's a fair amount of info, especially in the LC's, that...if memory is still serving...LF spent quite a bit of early time in other parts of the earth before coming to the Land itself. And I even think[???] that in the times when the great forests all lived that the "Forbidding" of the Forestals was as effective against LF as it was Ravers.
As far as LF being the ultimate/original source of all evil...maybe, maybe not. There is textual information that I THINK says LF "placed" banes in the earth...one origin story indicates that's what pissed the Creator off and got LF thrown down to begin with. But it doesn't say LF CREATED those banes. He surely didn't create SHE, and there is no evidence at all that he created the Viles. I don't think he COULD have created them, considering their original nature.

A complete time-line of events would be one HELL of a research project, to get everything correct. Even then, much of it would have notes like, "At this time the Vizard humiliated the Har....give or take 1000 years." [an example...that particular one might be narrowed down a little more precisely]

Vraith, check out kevinswatch.ihugny.com/phpBB2/viewtopic ... 6&start=32 for some timelines related to Viles and Demondim.

The Demondim persisted through Kevin's reign, as they slew the Old Lords sent in Kevin's stead to parley with the Despiser. IIRC, the Ritual of Desecration is what ended the Vilespawn.

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.

Mighara Sovmadhi wrote:The Demondim persisted through Kevin's reign, as they slew the Old Lords sent in Kevin's stead to parley with the Despiser. IIRC, the Ritual of Desecration is what ended the Vilespawn.

It was ur-viles that did that, not Demondim.

Zarathustra wrote:Heh, well that's one way to look at it.

Heh, it is...and I don't insist that you agree with it, as far as us humans go.

But I think it is so for the books.
The text actually tells us [more than once, unless I'm way mistaken] that the self-loathing is taught to the Viles, [they may be potent and lofty...but they're also innocent...or naive anyway...and they know that. "The Hazard." They are also no more immune to lies and corruption by a thing like LF than any other creature.] from there it is passed down "culturally."

And they find their way OUT of self-loathing [well, their "descendants" do] BEFORE they become "beautiful" in the final transformation...in fact that transformation only becomes physically expressible BECAUSE they've overcome that self-loathing.

Seriously, there is a defining difference between, say, being unsatisfied that one is overweight or has a big nose and dangling earlobes and believing that those aspects make you a worthless, disgusting being, a valueless blob with no redeeming qualities.

Vraith wrote: The text actually tells us [more than once, unless I'm way mistaken] that the self-loathing is taught to the Viles, [they may be potent and lofty...but they're also innocent...or naive anyway...and they know that. "The Hazard." They are also no more immune to lies and corruption by a thing like LF than any other creature.] from there it is passed down "culturally."

But the Viles weren't created creatures, were they? I think this discussion is confusing all these races under general points. The ur-viles and Waynhim both abhorred their physical forms. However, only the ur-viles allowed this to drive them to violence and destruction (possibly due to LF's influence). The Waynhim, on the other hand, had an aversion to their physical forms and yet didn't allow Foul to corrupt them. They used their self-loathing in positive ways that served the Land. Thus, their self-abhorrence was self-caused. No one taught it to them ... just as I suspect no one taught it to the ur-viles. Lord Foul merely took advantage of it.

And they find their way OUT of self-loathing [well, their "descendants" do] BEFORE they become "beautiful" in the final transformation...in fact that transformation only becomes physically expressible BECAUSE they've overcome that self-loathing.

That's an interesting interpretation. I'd like to see some evidence form the text. Where was this said that they find their way out of self-loathing prior to their redemption in The Last Dark? As per the Waynhim example above, the Demondim spawn didn't need to find their way out of self-loathing in order to interpret their Weird into positive acts. Recognizing the superior beauty of created creatures is the flip side of this self-abhorrence, and that's what the Waynhim (and eventually the ur-viles) used as their motivation ... not making peace with themselves. Donaldson was very explicit about the Waynhim's self-abhorrence combined with their service to the Land. They found a different expression from the ur-viles for the very same abhorrence.

Seriously, there is a defining difference between, say, being unsatisfied that one is overweight or has a big nose and dangling earlobes and believing that those aspects make you a worthless, disgusting being, a valueless blob with no redeeming qualities.

Yes, as expressed by the Waynhim and the ur-viles. It doesn't mean that a person isn't recognizing objective facts in either case. It only depends on what one does with it (or what one allows the Despiser to convince one to do with it).

To put the blame of women's self-despite upon men takes away from the fact that we all have our own inner Despiser. While it's possible for any of us to exacerbate this pressure, we're all nevertheless human and flawed, and thus we're all subject to this inherent imperfection. Women aren't any better than men in this respect, and men aren't any worse. You demean the spiritual journey of self-discovery of women when you invent an external cause for their inner struggle. This is the burden we must all bear. Women are strong enough that they don't need you to lighten the load by placing it on men's shoulders.

Maybe you should ask some women about their attitudes concerning their periods before you presume to know more about them than they do. After a quick check with the wife to confirm my impression, I'm pretty sure that most women would say that their mothers were the ones who taught them about their periods, while fathers stayed the hell away from that subject ... gladly. But if you think that dads were telling their daughters "from day one" something otherwise, you're free to present evidence. Otherwise, it just seems like liberal guilt and victimization myths to me. I don't understand it at all. Or why we're talking about it in a thread about Demondim. But you brought it up.

The Raver [IIRC] whispered to the Viles...btw, it is the Viles that Loric took down, maybe the Demondim, too but I don't recall for sure...

In TIW Elena tells Covenant that Loric made and used the krill to slay the Demondim form of moksha Jehannum and thus "stem the first corruption of the Demondim". In TROTE Stave tells Linden that Loric fought the Viles. The most complete account is given by Esmer in Ch.2 of FR. He tells Linden that Stave's previous account is wrong, and among other things he tells her that, while the Viles were seduced to self-loathing by the Ravers, they didn't serve Lord Foul. However the Demondim were successfully seduced by moksha and turiya to Lord Foul's service, and Loric's slaying of the loremaster was too late to prevent this. Where Stave and Esmer agree is that the Demondim were undone by the Ritual of Desecration.

I'm almost positive the text somewhere says flat out that LF did NOT create the Ravers.

Two texts come to mind. One is Anele's story in TROTE of how the Ravers emerged over time through the admixture of humans and the malevolence of the Sarangrave. The other, once again from Esmer in FR, is that LF awakened the malevolence of the Sarangrave, and that the malevolence "conjoined with the rapacity of humankind" gave rise to the Ravers. The two accounts are quite reconcilable, and between them suggest that Foul didn't directly create the Ravers but found them, and discovered that they were only too happy to do his bidding.

If we cast our minds back to Covenant's first translation to the Land, at that time Drool was seeking the Illearth Stone but had yet to find it. He unearthed the Stone at some point between Covenant's initial translation and his arrival in Revelstone.

dlbpharmd wrote:

Mighara Sovmadhi wrote:The Demondim persisted through Kevin's reign, as they slew the Old Lords sent in Kevin's stead to parley with the Despiser. IIRC, the Ritual of Desecration is what ended the Vilespawn.

It was ur-viles that did that, not Demondim.

Damn, I swore that's what Roger said in early FR or something...

Yes Z. - I knew that as I was posting it [re the 'Vilesilencer' thing] but I thought someone had posted it above that Loric had defeated the Demondim. Can't seem to find it now; must have been having a 'funny five minutes'.

Can I ask some questions:-

1) Were Viles completely incorporeal - ie all mind and no body.

2) Were Demondim composed of Vile minds clothed in this 'dead body' exterior, or when creating the Demondim did the Viles create effectively a new being from scratch.

3) When the Demondim created the ur-viles and Waynhim did they [similarly] create new beings from scratch or did they modify themselves into these two new forms.

4) Was not Vain the ultimate expression of who the ur-viles believed themselves to be. The perfected form of their perfec 'idea' of themselves [as such had they not achieved their 'weird' way back in the 2nd Chrons]

5) [Sorry - I think it may be answered above but] Did LF create the Viles?