So were they just sitting in the Worm's path?

Book 4 of the Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

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Mighara Sovmadhi
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So were they just sitting in the Worm's path?

Post by Mighara Sovmadhi »

One of the most ill-explored situations in the Last Chronicles is the fate of the Elohim prior to their safeguarding in Jeremiah's fane. Like, the Worm isn't especially fast and seemed pretty consistent in its approach to the Land, so how come so many stars started disappearing along the way? The Elohim could've zigzagged out of that way, it seems, drawing the Worm (which caught up to any of them how, after all?) in a crazy circuit across the face of the Earth. Instead, the progress of TLD makes it seem as if there were Elohim lined up in the Worm's path, that they didn't move out of that path, etc.
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Post by dlbpharmd »

Have thought about this. The Elohim are drawn to structures, and I think that the Worm is essentially the ultimate structure that attracts them. I believe that they tried to hide as best they could, but were drawn to the Worm anyway.

Interested for any other explanations.
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Post by Wosbald »

+JMJ+
dlbpharmd wrote:Have thought about this. The Elohim are drawn to structures, and I think that the Worm is essentially the ultimate structure that attracts them. I believe that they tried to hide as best they could, but were drawn to the Worm anyway.

Interested for any other explanations.
I remember wondering this as well. And though it's been so long that I don't distinctly remember any conclusions to which I came, your explanation sympathetically resonates with my hazy recollections.


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Post by wayfriend »

That's an excellent question, Mighara.

The question I ask is, why would the Elohim run? If it's the end of the world, where can you go?

The Elohim are supposed to be all the same, but in practice they do have different personalities that seem to arise from their individual experiences in the world. So I take this to mean that they are mostly the same. They may all have the same knowledge, but some may be more selfish or more cowardly than others.

So I think that most of them just sat where they were, and waited to be consumed. If there's one thing you can say about them, they believed in fate. Rather than cringe or flee, they merely waited.

The Worm was, after all, their Wurd. Their fate. They have known their final fate for their entire existence.

I imagine a lot were found in Elemesnedene.

The Elohim who were a little wacko, like Kastenessen, would be the ones to run and hide. To them, it would be running from their Wurd, their fate. It would be a bit of an apostasy.

This doesn't mean that theories about Structure don't also fit into it. I imagine once the Worm was close enough, it was relentless and unavoidable. Nothing could stop it. Elohim may have been choice-less beyond a certain point.
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Post by Savor Dam »

This also carries echoes of how the Unhomed faced their fate.
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Re: So were they just sitting in the Worm's path?

Post by Lazy Luke »

Mighara Sovmadhi wrote:how come so many stars started disappearing along the way?
My guess is that the relationship between the stars and the Elohim is light. Aren't the Elohim the spirits of the trees that once formed the One Forest? If the Worm were destroying the willow and the gilden etc etc etc, wouldn't those Faeriefolk also be destroyed - as a darkness consuming light!

I might add that this could be construed as the Red King of Wonderland, who if awakened, the dream and Wonderland would wink out like a candle. After all, the Elohim are the crowning glory of Creation.
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Post by Mighara Sovmadhi »

Aren't the Elohim the spirits of the trees that once formed the One Forest?
No, those were supposedly the Viles. How the Dead of the One Forest were able to cross over into Life, long before the breaking of the Laws of Life and Death, is also never explained, although to be sure the belief that the Viles were such Dead was never presented as a surety.

EDIT: I suppose the possibly deific "Indifference" that Covenant mentions near the beginning of AATE could have been the source of a lot of the otherwise unexplained magic systems in the series.* I've interpreted the "contingent" magic of Vidik Amar as a system based on copying other systems (contingent on them, then), but who knows? And so, too, maybe a thread of Indifference helped form the Viles. Or the Viles involved an ancient spillover from SWMNBN, or... IDK. I wonder if SRD will ever decide to clarify any of these questions... though for the time being I suppose he won't.

*The Insequent, in my headcanon, somehow originally, or to this day, used marrowmeld rings to simulate white gold. I got this from the reference to bone as an analogy of white gold in one of the early poems ("hue of life" I think was the descriptor addended there). More specifically, I theorized that very ancient Insequent studied the magic of the Ranyhyn (who also are oddly capable of defying the Elohim, as when they smashed into Infelice!), which is a Time-warped theurgy, very befitting those who would emulate the wild magic keystone of the Arch of Time. But aside from serving colorful purposes in fan fiction, I don't have much else to defend such notions with.
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Post by Lazy Luke »

Mighara Sovmadhi wrote:I theorized that very ancient Insequent studied the magic of the Ranyhyn (marrowmeld rings)... very befitting those who would emulate the wild magic keystone of the Arch of Time.
A question I've never seen answered or even addressed for that matter, is which bones Elena could have used to fashion her marrowmeld sculpture of Thomas Covenant.
There is an interesting term in describing a horse's sternum structure, or 'Keel'. It is interesting because the word 'keel' had also been used in describing the rocky passage where Lena took Covenant to be alone, and where, Covenant subsequently raped her.
However that may be, I imagine the breastbones of a horse to be too bulky for Bannor to have tucked away inside his tunic - along with the piece of orcrest ...
But aside from serving colorful purposes in fan fiction, I don't have much else to defend such notions with.
Agreed.
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Post by hurtloam »

dlbpharmd wrote:Have thought about this. The Elohim are drawn to structures, and I think that the Worm is essentially the ultimate structure that attracts them. I believe that they tried to hide as best they could, but were drawn to the Worm anyway.

Interested for any other explanations.
I like this line of thought. In the same way, Findail couldn't escape Vain in part because Vain was pure structure, while Findail the Elohim was pure fluidity. He's drawn to his opposite. But then, I'm not sure the Worm is so much structure like a temple is. The Worm is pure destruction. Perhaps it's the wurd of the Elohim that requires that they sacrifice their eternal lives to feed the Worm.
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Post by wayfriend »

In [i]Fatal Revenant[/i] was wrote:"Done, Timewarden?" Infelice snapped viciously. "Done? She has roused the Worm of the World's End. Such magicks must be answered. Because of her madness and folly, every Elohim will be devoured."
Such magicks must be answered. What a curious response to this situation, for her to say that.

This, I think, answers the OP question, if we can only work out how.

Because to answer the magick Linden unleashed implies doing something. I don't think either running, or hiding, or sitting down and patiently waiting for the end, qualifies as "answering" the magick.

No, what fits the idea of an "answer" more is the Elohim deciding, as a group, that some of their number must be slaughtered to appease the WOTWE's hunger. Make time for others to flee and hide. Slow it down. Make it sleepy, or at least less ravenous.
In [i]Against All Things Ending[/i] was later wrote:"Rousing, it is galled by hunger. As any living thing, it must feed. And as we are its stewards, so are we also its sustenance. Such is our Würd. The Worm must feed upon us. Only when it is sated with Elohim will it turn to the accomplishment of its greater purpose. If any of our kind remain unconsumed, we will endure solely to witness the end of all things, and so pass into the last dark."

- feed upon us. Perhaps Linden should have been shaken. Earlier Infelice had said that every Elohim will be devoured, but Linden had hardly heard her. Now Linden might have stopped to consider the cost of what she had done.

But Infelice had not given her what she needed. Linden tried again. "How long will it take? Hours? Days? Weeks?"

Like angry weeping, the Elohim replied, "We will seek to delay our passing because we must. We will flee and conceal ourselves at such distances as we are able to attain, requiring the Worm to scent us out singly, for we do not wish to perish. With sustenance, however, the Worm’s might will grow. Ere a handful of days have passed, its puissance will discover and consume us. Then there will be no force in all the Earth great enough to delay the Worm."

"All right," Linden repeated. "A handful of days."
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