So what the heck was Lord Foul anyway?

A place to discuss the entirety of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.

Moderators: kevinswatch, aliantha

User avatar
High Lord Tolkien
Excommunicated Member of THOOLAH
Posts: 7376
Joined: Tue Oct 19, 2004 2:40 am
Location: Cape Cod, Mass
Been thanked: 3 times
Contact:

So what the heck was Lord Foul anyway?

Post by High Lord Tolkien »

So what was Foul anyway?
A separate entity?
Part of the Creator?
Brother of the Creator?
Foul banged the Creator's wife so he must be an individual, right?
Maybe he's just a jacked up apprentice at the Creator's forge and "She" thought his fang shaped eyes were sexy?

He's clearly not equal to the Creator in power because the big C slapped him down to Earth and trapped him there.
And the "she" slapped him down again.
Without Wild Magic even the Elohim always regarded him as an annoying punk to be ignored.
And now his entire existence has been merged with TC.
At the end of the day, what the hell was he?
https://thoolah.blogspot.com/

[Defeated by a gizmo from Batman's utility belt]
Joker: I swear by all that's funny never to be taken in by that unconstitutional device again!


Image Image Image Image
User avatar
aTOMiC
Lord
Posts: 24588
Joined: Wed Sep 10, 2003 6:48 am
Location: Tampa, Florida
Has thanked: 4 times
Been thanked: 7 times
Contact:

Post by aTOMiC »

Analogous with Satan / Sauron I suppose.
,👹
"If you can't tell the difference, what difference does it make?"
Image

"There is tic and toc in atomic" - Neil Peart
User avatar
wayfriend
.
Posts: 20957
Joined: Wed Apr 21, 2004 12:34 am
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 4 times

Post by wayfriend »

He's "archetypal evil". That's the best way to say it.

You may say, "but how can a person or a being BE archetypal evil." The answer is -- it's not real, dude! This is literature. This kind of stuff happens all the time.

He is evil incarnate. The embodiment of what makes bad things bad. He is the god of despite. The primorial building blocks of hate.
.
DrPaul
Giantfriend
Posts: 492
Joined: Thu Jun 18, 2009 4:51 am
Been thanked: 2 times

Post by DrPaul »

My take is that Lord Foul began as the embodiment of the principle of cosmic perfection, and thus as not originally evil.

Creation, and life, is by definition imperfect, as it is both finite and constantly changing. Perfection can never be achieved, but living beings can strive towards it, to become better. than they are. LF's original purpose was to prompt such striving.

However, at some point early in the history of his universe, LF began to misconceive this purpose in such a way that the healthy promotion of striving to become better became the unhealthy fostering of a lack of appreciation of what was good in what one already was. It curdled into Despite.

Consider two quotes, one from TPTP, the other from the Epilogue to TLD.

The first describe's Covenant's perceptions of Ridjeck Thome:
The hall’s symmetry and stonework were perfect. At its widest point, it opened into matched passages which led up to the towers, and the floor of its opposite end sank flawlessly down to form a wide, spiral stairway into the rock. Everywhere the stone stretched and met without seams, cracks, junctures; the hall was as smoothly carved, polished, and even, as unblemished by ornament, feature, error, as if the ideal conception of its creator had been rendered into immaculate stone without the interference of hands that slipped, minds that misunderstood. It was obviously not Giant-work; it lacked anything which might intrude on the absolute exaction of its shape, lacked the Giantish enthusiasm for detail. Instead, it seemed to surpass any kind of mortal craft. It was preternaturally perfect... Then at odd moments he caught glimpses of the spirit of this place, the uncompromising flawlessness which somehow gave rise to, affirmed, the most rabid and insatiable malice. In this air, contempt and comfort became the same thing. Foul’s Creche was the domain of a being who understood perfection–a being who loathed life, not because it was any threat to him, but because its mortal infestations offended the defining passion of his existence.
The second is Covenant's explanation to Infelice of why he has taken the Despiser into himself:
Jeremiah objected. “The Despiser? He would have slaughtered the whole world and laughed about it.�

“Well, sure,� Covenant shrugged. “But ask yourself why he’s like that. Berek said it. ‘Only the great of heart may despair greatly.’ All that malice and contempt is just love and hope and eagerness gone rancid. He’s the Creator’s curdled shadow. He –“

He grimaced again. “I’m not saying this right.

“He gives us the chance to do better.�
User avatar
Fist and Faith
Magister Vitae
Posts: 23439
Joined: Sun Dec 01, 2002 8:14 pm
Has thanked: 6 times
Been thanked: 30 times

Post by Fist and Faith »

Extremely interesting thinking, DrPaul. That's the most interesting interpretation of Foul I've ever heard of. Well done.

Going to have to disagree with you on this part, however:
DrPaul wrote:Creation, and life, is by definition imperfect, as it is both finite and constantly changing. Perfection can never be achieved...
Perfection is always being achieved. From Richard Bach's Illusions:
"Look at the sky."

"Pretty sky," I said.

"It is a perfect sky?"

"Well, it's always a perfect sky, Don."

"Are you telling me that even though it's changng every second, the sky is always a perfect sky?"

"Gee, I'm smart. Yes!"

"And the sea is always a perfect sea, and it's always changing, too," he said. "If perfection is stagnation, then heaven is a swamp! And the Is ain't hardly no swamp cookie."
Last edited by Fist and Faith on Thu Oct 20, 2022 9:08 am, edited 1 time in total.
All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest
-Paul Simon
User avatar
Avatar
Immanentizing The Eschaton
Posts: 61651
Joined: Mon Aug 02, 2004 9:17 am
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa
Has thanked: 13 times
Been thanked: 19 times

Post by Avatar »

Love that quote. :D

--A
User avatar
Fist and Faith
Magister Vitae
Posts: 23439
Joined: Sun Dec 01, 2002 8:14 pm
Has thanked: 6 times
Been thanked: 30 times

Post by Fist and Faith »

I was waiting for you to comment. :D
All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest
-Paul Simon
User avatar
wayfriend
.
Posts: 20957
Joined: Wed Apr 21, 2004 12:34 am
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 4 times

Post by wayfriend »

Foul’s Creche was the domain of a being who understood perfection–a being who loathed life, not because it was any threat to him, but because its mortal infestations offended the defining passion of his existence.
This is a very telling intuition about Lord Foul, indeed.

But I think that there is a lot that goes against the notion of Foul being "not originally evil".

Depending on which creation myth you ascribe to
In [u]Lord Foul's Bane[/u] was wrote:He did not know that his Enemy, the demon spirit of murk and mire that crawled through the bowels of even his universe, had seen him at work, and had cast spite into the mortar of his creating.
In [u]Lord Foul's Bane[/u] was wrote:Perhaps he found Despite itself beside him, misguiding his hand. Or perhaps he saw the harm in himself. It does not matter. He became outraged with grief and torn pride. In his fury he wrestled with Despite, either within him or without, and in his fury he. cast the Despiser down, out of the infinity of the cosmos onto the Earth.
The Creator's enemy; Despite beside the Creator; Harm within the Creator.

In none of these scenarios does the author hint that Foul was not originally evil. He is Despite - manifest hate - from the get go.

It's possible that an infinite being may have a love of perfection, and a disdain for the mortal life which mars it, without first having been good. Remember, a love of perfection is not in and of itself "good". It is actually a misapprehension of the purpose of existence. The world, or universe, wasn't created to be perfect, or to seek perfection, nor is seeking perfection a worthy dedication. The impossibility of perfection does not make seeking it a lofty or admirable goal.

It seems more likely to me that Foul's love of perfection arises from hatred. He sees perfection as the result of eradicating all life and dreams and hopes from the world. Sterility and Emptiness. No one to challenge or oppose or mar what he desires. Perfection is Foul's vision for the world enacted without obstruction.

So: Foul is Desite. The personification of an idea, in the way that many gods are the personification of ideas. He always was, and he always will be, Hate personified. In the end, he could not be destroyed, and he could not be changed, he could only be mastered and controlled, allowed to exist within limits.

.... but even this is not complete. For we have to consider Foul's relationship to Covenant as well.
.
User avatar
High Lord Tolkien
Excommunicated Member of THOOLAH
Posts: 7376
Joined: Tue Oct 19, 2004 2:40 am
Location: Cape Cod, Mass
Been thanked: 3 times
Contact:

Post by High Lord Tolkien »

I still feel like the introduction of "She" changed everything about Foul.
Made Foul less of a concept and more of an individual.

If he was just a part of the Creator, Foul's interactions with She don't make much sense to me.
I admit it, I'm not a god but if Foul is within or is a part of the Creator how could Foul interact with She and he not be aware of it?
Does the Creator have a split personality or sleepwalks?
Sounds like I'm joking but I'm trying to figure out what Foul is.


Does the existence of She make true the creation myth of the Giants?
Replace the children with She?

I'm obviously forgetting something about her story.
How was it explained how she got trapped under the Arch of Time?
https://thoolah.blogspot.com/

[Defeated by a gizmo from Batman's utility belt]
Joker: I swear by all that's funny never to be taken in by that unconstitutional device again!


Image Image Image Image
User avatar
Fist and Faith
Magister Vitae
Posts: 23439
Joined: Sun Dec 01, 2002 8:14 pm
Has thanked: 6 times
Been thanked: 30 times

Post by Fist and Faith »

"She" :LOLS:

Seriously, I've tried reading the final chrons twice. I read the first two books as they came out. Couldn't take it, so I stopped. I just tried the third. I did manage to get halfway through before I couldn't take any more. Despite some brilliant moments, I just can't stand it. So, sadly, I can't say anything about She. I only read her brief initial appearance.
All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest
-Paul Simon
User avatar
Wosbald
A Brainwashed Religious Flunkie
Posts: 6085
Joined: Sat Feb 07, 2015 1:35 am
Been thanked: 2 times

Post by Wosbald »

+JMJ+

"Nothing is evil in the beginning" is a JRRT concern which speaks to his philosophical and theological commitments. There is no evidence, AFAIK, that SRD has any intention of addressing such questions.

OTOH, is SRD interested in telling a Dualist/Manichean/Gnostic/Jungian/etc story? There seems to be a lot of evidence that SRD is not interested in going down this road either.


Image


Image
User avatar
shadowbinding shoe
The Gap Into Spam
Posts: 1477
Joined: Sat Mar 15, 2008 6:33 am

Post by shadowbinding shoe »

Personifications of Ideas are a bit different than mortal humans. A big part of what makes individual human is their complexity. The eternal Ideas are by definition two dimensional and unchanging. But in the Chronicles the Creator is an individual and She (her name is Love, right?) are individuals so Despite is one too. The creation stories 1st Chron Land denizens told Thomas Covenant were colored and incomplete. The later version are more accurate.

wayfriend - I don't agree. The evil nature of Lord Foul is made manifest only when Creator works on his Creation. Before that Lord Foul lived peacefully with the other Eternals and even won the heart of She. Either he was changed by the act of creation or the evil nature of his Idea held no meaning before it was reflected in the details of the Creator's creation.

Despite is heavily influenced by the Christian mythos of Lucifer and his many iterations in fiction like in Lord of the Rings. When only God, the angels and heaven exist Lucifer is the best angel. Only when God creates Earth and humans or when he makes Jesus Lucifer transform into the Devil. His Pride was meaningless until God created something he envied.

Lord Foul shows many faces during the story. No two people see the same thing when they look at him. They each give him a different name. but there are a few common facets. He can find and exploit imperfections in anything and anyone. Even other immortals like the Elohim, the Creator and She are vulnerable to him. His plans are so convoluted and all encompassing they are they amount to prophecy. But he fails to predict the protagonists' response because he can't predict free will. He makes the world awful and destroy lives whenever he can but if the world was lifeless would the changes he chose be bad? The Sunbane looks pretty neat from an airplane I bet. His Creche was a perfect gem.

An Idea of Static Perfection fit what we know of him. By it's very definition Creation and by extension The Creator are anathema to his nature. She, the Idea of Love will disgust him. Her nature imbues more beauty and value to others than what is inherent in them before. Love is irrational after all. And She will be attracted to this perfect being.

It's no coincidence his chief obstacles throughout the story are the Arch of Time and its Avatar and individual's Free Will, the symbols of Change in the Creator's Creation.
High Lord Tolkien wrote:I still feel like the introduction of "She" changed
Does the existence of She make true the creation myth of the Giants?
Replace the children with She?
What was the Giants' Creation myth?
A little knowledge is still better than no knowledge.
User avatar
wayfriend
.
Posts: 20957
Joined: Wed Apr 21, 2004 12:34 am
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 4 times

Post by wayfriend »

shadowbinding shoe wrote:Before that Lord Foul lived peacefully with the other Eternals
Can you provide a passage?
shadowbinding shoe wrote:and even won the heart of She.
Well, I wouldn't take that as evidence of goodness, either.
High Lord Tolkien wrote:I still feel like the introduction of "She" changed about Foul. Made Foul less of a concept and more of an individual.
Infinite beings are beyond us, by definition. Even SRD punted on the notion on explaining the cause of Foul's despair, because he too far beyond us. (I know I need the quote, but I don't have it handy.)
shadowbinding shoe wrote:What was the Giants' Creation myth?
The Wounded Rainbow.
.
User avatar
shadowbinding shoe
The Gap Into Spam
Posts: 1477
Joined: Sat Mar 15, 2008 6:33 am

Post by shadowbinding shoe »

wayfriend wrote:
shadowbinding shoe wrote:Before that Lord Foul lived peacefully with the other Eternals
Can you provide a passage?
We know he was with the other Eternals until he entered Landworld. Time may not exist there. The arch of Time is a construct of Landworld but however it works until the Creator was halfway finished with Landworld, Despite was with him and the others in the Eternal dimension.
A little knowledge is still better than no knowledge.
DrPaul
Giantfriend
Posts: 492
Joined: Thu Jun 18, 2009 4:51 am
Been thanked: 2 times

Post by DrPaul »

Wayfriend, the passages you quote from LFB are from stories about the origins of Despite that are told by, respectively, Saltheart Foamfollower and Lord Tamarantha, both of whom preface the stories by describing them as "legends".

By the end of The Last Chronicles, the person who knows most about Lord Foul is Covenant, who has absorbed the Despiser into himself and shared his knowledge of the universe. We can therefore regard the words by Covenant that I quoted as "inside knowledge" - in more ways than one - and thus the most reliable guide to the true nature of Lord Foul that we can read in any of the Chronicles.
User avatar
wayfriend
.
Posts: 20957
Joined: Wed Apr 21, 2004 12:34 am
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 4 times

Post by wayfriend »

DrPaul wrote:By the end of The Last Chronicles, the person who knows most about Lord Foul is Covenant, ...
Absolutely.

But "He’s the Creator’s curdled shadow" doesn't mean he was ever not the Creator's shadow. Nor does "All that malice and contempt is just love and hope and eagerness gone rancid" mean that there was a time when it wasn't rancid (he's describing a relationship, not a change over time).

Can timeless and eternal beings change in a timeless eternity?

Don't you think that if Foul was once "less bad", it implies he could become "less bad" once again?

And don't you think if Foul could be rehabilitated, then Covenant's "final answer to evil" would be considered cruel rather than necessary?
.
User avatar
dlbpharmd
Lord
Posts: 14460
Joined: Thu Sep 11, 2003 9:27 am
Been thanked: 2 times

Post by dlbpharmd »

Off topic a bit - The creation myth as told by the Elohim (the Worm of the World's End) comes closest to being the "true" story, yes?
Image
User avatar
wayfriend
.
Posts: 20957
Joined: Wed Apr 21, 2004 12:34 am
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 4 times

Post by wayfriend »

Yes, I think so.

I don't think it was a clear-cut winner until the Last Chronicles, when SRD decided to make it seem more factual than it had been. I consider that a bit of revisionism, personally.

But I can hear Donaldson in my mind denying that he had. "No one ever sees the Worm, do they? At best they see something powerful in the distance. It could be anything."

It's the Worm. I don't think anyone can be talked out of it. At best, you could argue that "The Worm" is a term used for something that they cannot fully comprehend as mere mortals.

For remember, that the Elohim themselves didn't call it the Worm - they called it the Würd.
.
User avatar
Fist and Faith
Magister Vitae
Posts: 23439
Joined: Sun Dec 01, 2002 8:14 pm
Has thanked: 6 times
Been thanked: 30 times

Post by Fist and Faith »

You can't take an Elohim's word on anything. Not worms, or wurms, or Würds. They're just too weird.

And that, folks, passes for a joke in my current state of mind.
All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest
-Paul Simon
User avatar
High Lord Tolkien
Excommunicated Member of THOOLAH
Posts: 7376
Joined: Tue Oct 19, 2004 2:40 am
Location: Cape Cod, Mass
Been thanked: 3 times
Contact:

Post by High Lord Tolkien »

The fact that the Worm wasn't actually the core of the Earth was a huge disappointment to me.
I can't even express how awesome that concept was to me!
And then....nope.
Just really big.
https://thoolah.blogspot.com/

[Defeated by a gizmo from Batman's utility belt]
Joker: I swear by all that's funny never to be taken in by that unconstitutional device again!


Image Image Image Image
Post Reply

Return to “The Entire Chronicles”