Kevin's Watch

At the start of The Wounded Land we find Foul controlling a small army of 'converts', posessing Joan, manifesting in the flames of bonfires and exerting influence seemingly at will. How does this square with an entity supposedly entrapped under the Arch of Time in the Land. With this degree of freedom of action one can posit all kinds of ways in which Foul could wreek havoc outside the Land in the broader universe - why then was he so hung up on TC and how did he engage this level of freedom?

[totally unrelated {just hit the 'f' under the 'r' in 'unrelated' to produce unfelated - freudian typo?} in the 'combined 2C volume I found yesterday, between the title page "The Wounded Land", and "The Prologue, Choice" page is a single page [lhs of book] blank exept for the small italicised legend Gallow-fells.

There is no 'gallow-fells' in the glossary of any of my TC books, though clearly one would think it relates to Gallows-Howe. Any ideas?]

The interface between the Land and the Real World is permeable in spirit by and via EarthPower, and restricted by Law. The Staff of Law is destroyed, and the Law of Death is shattered, weakening the Law that restricts the interface. Foul has spent 4000 years corrupting EarthPower, bending it to his purposes. He is still physically blocked by the Arch of Time, but now has spiritual access to the Real World.
From there, it was easy enough to reach out to Joan via her deep connection to Covenant and their respective rings. She was involved in a group of spiritually damaged seekers, whom Foul also then influenced. He got them to start using various minor forms of blood sacrifice - apparently initially (and probably primarily) from animals, but I wouldn't be surprised if self-cutting wasn't involved as a mirror to the invocation of the Sunbane corrupted Earthpower used in the Land.
The summonsing, like all of the Sunbane corruption required blood and extreme physical weakness (nigh unto death) in order to be effective.

IS, that's one way to look at it. I mean that sincerely, not sarcastically. From the perspective of "within the metaphor" that makes perfect sense.

However, there's another perspective--the literal and/or real world perspective--in which Lord Foul is just a metaphor for the Despiser in all of us, and therefore Joan's actions are totally self-contained and don't require the theory of an external, other-worldly Despiser leaking in from another reality.

And the cult could have been "Covenant-centric" because Joan was a member. Maybe hearing about her husband--a leper with all the Biblical connotations--inspired them to see him as a sign, and thus he became the focus of their particular form of retribution.

Peter ... well, perhaps your name says it all.

IS, I don't think the breaking of the Law of Death had been done at this stage [wasn't that where Caer Caveral brought Hollian back to life], but I see where you are coming from; and set along side Z.'s 'outside the metaphor' reasoning, the two make for a good 'juxta-position' illustrating the central paradox of the Chrons. As Z. has said elsewhere, there is [contrary to my reasoning of 24 hours ago ] nothing that can't be taken and turned to fit either perspective.

[In keeping with the provenance of my name Z. I suppose I could just as easily have chosen . ]

nice guy peter wrote:IS, I don't think the breaking of the Law of Death had been done at this stage [wasn't that where Caer Caveral brought Hollian back to life], but I see where you are coming from; and set along side Z.'s 'outside the metaphor' reasoning, the two make for a good 'juxta-position' illustrating the central paradox of the Chrons. As Z. has said elsewhere, there is [contrary to my reasoning of 24 hours ago ] nothing that can't be taken and turned to fit either perspective.

[In keeping with the provenance of my name Z. I suppose I could just as easily have chosen . ]

Caer Caveral broke the Law of Life (He said, "This Law, too, must be broken", IIRC). The Law of Death was broken when Elena summoned Kevin with the Power of Command - The Earthblood providing her with raw Earthpower, unrestrained by Law, therefore able to break the Law.

Yes - correct IS. My mistake.

nice guy peter wrote:
There is no 'gallow-fells' in the glossary of any of my TC books, though clearly one would think it relates to Gallows-Howe. Any ideas?]

It's part of Minnie/A-J song/tale:

Mininderain he treats with rue;
No heaven-home for broken trust,
But children given to pursue
All treachery to death and dust.
Thus Earth became a gallow-fells
For a-Jeroth of the Seven Hells.

"Gallow-fells" is not a specific place in the Land. It's just a term for hills on which gallows stand.

But I, too, have seen that odd page in the book. There is, indeed, a page saying only "GALLOW-FELLS", right before the Prologue. The parts (Prologue, Part 1, and Part 2) are all named. What does GALLOWS-FELL name?

I can only think this is an artifact of the re-organization of the series from four books into three. But even that's not really an answer.

- - - - - - - -

As for Lord Foul reaching into in our world, I am thinking as Irrational Sanity is thinking.

There must be some way to get "out" of the Land, else Drool could never have summoned Covenant at the very beginning. The story clearly says that the breaking of the Law of Death makes this easier. Covenant being near death makes it easier still. And also, if the Staff of Law could do it, other powers could do it as well.

A specific location had been required, specific pain, a triangle of blood, freedom of choice and death. Had any of these conditions failed, the summoning would have failed.

And I think we have to wonder, if we are going to consider two perspectives on the Land's reality, who it was that was outlined in the fire, with eyes carious and yellow.

So that mystery [sort of] remains.

One interesting point re the thread. I had forgotten, [currently re-reading] but Lord Foul's very first appearance in any form in the Chrons, was in fact outside the Land and in 'the real world'. When TC encounters the old beggar on the main steet of the Town [is it un-named or am I having a 'senior moment'] he is holding aloft a placard inscribed with the word 'BEWARE'. As TC looks at the placard,

...for an odd moment the sign itself seemed to exert a peril over Covenant. Dangers crowdwd through it to get at him, terrible dangers swam through the air toward him, screaming like vultures. And among them, looking toward him through the screams, there were eyes - two eyes like fangs, carious and deadly. They regarded him with a fixed, cold and hungry malice, focused on hin as if he and he alone were the carrion they craved. Malevolence dripped from them like venom. For that moment he quavered in the grasp of an inexplicable fear.

Again this would suggest at least some 'two-way traffic' between our and the Land's Wourld, even prior to the breaking of The Law of Death. By chance Z. [over in TLD 'thread' on whether the Land's reality is established or otherwise in the Chrons, suggests that Linden's 'seeing of the eyes' cannot be taken as 'evidence' of the Lands reality [which the 'two perspective' approach would demand would it not?], saying that such images are commonly seen in flames of fires - which no doubt they are.