Kevin's Watch

During a recent Dissection I was struck by the similarities—and extreme differences—between the deaths of First Mark Tuvor in the First Chronicles and Ceer in the Second Chronicles. Both Haruchai are mortally wounded, but not instantly killed (worse luck), in battles that look hopeless; both are lying in the laps of strangers to the Land as they expire.

Lord Foul's Bane:

Slavering with rage, Drool jabbed the iron heel of the Staff against Tuvor's body. Bloody light flashed. In that instant the First Mark's flesh became transparent; the company could see his bones burning like dry sticks. Then he fell, reeling backward to collapse in Covenant's arms.
His weight was too great for the Unbeliever to hold; Covenant sank to the stone under it. Cradling Tuvor, he watched the High Lord.

The One Tree:

And a Guard slipped into the center of the defense.
Charging massively forward, it aimed its spear at Linden.
...
But then Ceer hopped in front of her. Half immobilized by the splints on his leg, the bindings around his shoulder, he could not defend her in any other way. Diving forward, he accepted the spear-tip in his belly.
The blow drove him against her. They fell together to the stone.

Now the divergences between the scenes begin. Covenant and Tuvor, joined by Mhoram, form a peculiar bubble of privacy in the midst of Drool's chaos; gathered into focus by Tuvor's gaze, which neither Lord can refuse, the three have attention only for one another—as though in some secluded place in peacetime Revelstone rather than under Kiril Threndor.
Lord Foul's Bane:

But Lord Mhoram turned his back on Prothall. He knelt beside Covenant to see if he could aid Tuvor. As he examined the First Mark, he said roughly, "Drool seeks to master the Staff with malice. The High Lord can sing a stronger song than that."
...
Only Mhoram did not join the fight. He knelt beside Covenant and stroked the First Mark's face as though he were transfixed by Tuvor's dying.
...
The mounting perils made Covenant reel. Prothall and Drool struggled horribly above him. The fighting around him grew faster and more frenzied by the moment. Tuvor lay expiring in his lap. And he could do nothing about any of it, help none of them. Soon their escape would be cut off, and all their efforts would be in vain.
He had not foreseen this outcome to his bargain.

Ceer’s death is, in its turn, also an outcome of bargaining. Linden’s bargaining. Throughout the ordeal in Bhrathairealm, she’d been promising to herself to stop resisting using her percipience on Covenant. When she contacted Covenant’s mind, she absorbed the Elohim silence and Covenant was set free. But the silence worked differently on her than on him: she became submerged in memories of her parents’ abuses and deaths, and lost the ability to tell the present from the past. The consequences are…dire.

The One Tree:

Ceer sprawled across Linden’s legs. The weight of his life pinned her there. [Like Covenant, who couldn’t move while holding Tuvor. Only different.] Blood tried to pour from his guts, but he jammed his fist into the wound. Around her, her companions fought at the edges of their lives, survived for moments longer because they were too stubborn to acknowledge defeat. Impressions of horror shone out of Kemper’s Pitch. But Linden was unable to lift her eyes from Ceer. The torn agony within him etched itself across her nerves. His features were empty of import; but his pain was as vivid as memory in her.

Exactly as vivid as the memory that now holds her in its talons, and no more so.

His gaze focused on her face. It was acute with need. Moonlight burned like fever in his orbs. When he spoke, his voice was a whisper of blood panting through his lips.
“Help me rise. I must fight.”

SRD likewise focuses on gaze and last words in Tuvor’s last rites, to very different effect.

Lord Foul’s Bane:

Tuvor shuddered; his eyes opened. Covenant looked away from Prothall. Tuvor's lips moved, but he made no sound.
Mhoram tried to comfort him. "Have no fear. This evil will be overcome—it is in the High Lord's hands. And your name will be remembered with honor wherever trust is valued."
But Tuvor's eyes held Covenant, and he managed to whisper one word, "True?" His whole body strained with supplication, but Covenant did not know whether he asked for a promise or a judgment.
Yet the Unbeliever answered. He could not refuse a Bloodguard, could not deny the appeal of such expensive fidelity. The word stuck in his throat, but he forced it out. "Yes."
Tuvor shuddered again, and died with a flat groan as if the chord of his Vow had snapped.

Tuvor invests in Covenant—to the exclusion even of Mhoram—the power to pronounce his Vow complete. And his trust isn’t lost on the Unbeliever.

The quietus Linden offers Ceer is not the same.

The One Tree:

She heard him, and did not hear him. Let me die! She had heard that appeal before, heard it until it had taken command of her. It had become the voice of her private darkness, her intimate hunger. The stone around her was littered with fallen spears, some whole, some broken. Unconsciously [you can say that again!], her hands found an iron-tipped section of wood as long as her forearm. When Gibbon-Raver had touched her, part of her had leaped up in recognition and lust: her benighted powerlessness had responded to power. And now that response came welling back from its fountainhead of violence. You never loved me anyway. Silence bereft her of the severe resolve which had kept that black greed under control. [Farewell, Hippocratic Oath.] Power!
Gripping the wood like a spike, she copied the decision which had shaped her life. Ceer lifted his fist from his belly too slowly to stop her. She raised both arms and tried to drive the spearpoint down his throat.
Cail kicked out at her. … “No,” replied Cail inflexibly. “Her intent failed. It is the wound which reaves him of life.” His voice held no possibility of forgiveness.
Linden felt Ceer’s superficial weight being lifted from her legs. She did not know what she was saying. She possessed only a distant consciousness that there were words in her mouth.
“You never loved me anyway.”

The First nodded. She bent quickly to look at Ceer. He was dead—had bled to death like Linden’s father, though the two men could not have been more dissimilar. The First touched his cheek in benediction, sent a dark glance at Linden.

And let light perpetual shine upon him.

Durris wrote:Tuvor invests in Covenant

Perhaps Ceer's death changes or "frees" Linden in some regard. Perhaps the Elohim "silence" was somehow at war with Gibbon-Raver's touch. I don't know what that really says about the benefits of posession-unless Mr. Avery's humor and death posessed or eclipsed LA's young life. It's all extremely complicated, but perhaps the slight hesitation by Linden re: killing Ceer (or putting him out of his misery) makes all the difference. I'm not sure what I mean by this but maybe being "busted" by Cail while in the act says something like, "If you do this you cast the same shadow on the Search as you did on your life, it is not up to you to cheat destiny and it is beyond selfishness that you would be so weak to stoop to Foul's level and compromise the survival of our world." I'm not sure if I made any sense here but perhaps the "silence" and Cail somehow averted the morose "scenery" of our world from whitewashing the Land's world.

danlo wrote:unless Mr. Avery's humor and death posessed or eclipsed LA's young life.

That it certainly seems to have done. At the very end of the scene with Ceer, she actually speaks aloud her father's last words: "You never loved me anyway." That not only shows how completely she's fused past and present: it also reverses the roles. In her attack on Ceer she's killing her father before he can finish killing himself. (Her memories of her father's death up to now have carried terror, grief, revulsion, but never vengeance. The vengeance was there in the black moods that began soon afterward, and in the battle in Bhrathairealm it comes to fruition when the silence has taken her Hippocratic Oath away.)

danlo wrote:perhaps the "silence" and Cail somehow averted the morose "scenery" of our world from whitewashing the Land's world.

If she'd not been prevented from going through with this crime...*shudder*...Ceer's fate would have been no different, but hers and everyone else's might have been. She would either have fulfilled Gibbon's prophecies altogether, been dismembered by the living Haruchai before she could do so, or maybe have committed suicide when she came out of the silence.

For whatever reason I imagine Ceer as much younger than Linden, around 18 or 20. Maybe only because in other mythoi, warriors we get to know only briefly before they die are usually young enlisted persons.

When I said this: "If you do this you cast the same shadow on the Search as you did on your life..." I was speaking of her mother as well, I should have been more clear about that...sorry

Yes, she's certainly reenacting that crime as well--even the method is similar.

For whatever reason I imagine Ceer as much younger than Linden, around 18 or 20. Maybe only because in other mythoi, warriors we get to know only briefly before they die are usually young enlisted persons.

I imagined him as much younger as well.
Intersesting comparison by the way. But I've never really understood:

But Tuvors eyes held Covenant, and he managed to whisper one word, "True?" His whole body strained with supplication, but Covenant did not know whether he asked for a promise or a judgement.
Yet the Unbeliever answered. He could not refuse a Bloodguard, could not deny the appeal of such expensive fidelity. The word stuck in his throat, but he forced it out. "Yes."

As always, Durris, your thought provoking analysis is superb.

Quote:
Tuvor shuddered; his eyes opened. Covenant looked away from Prothall. Tuvor's lips moved, but he made no sound.
Mhoram tried to comfort him. "Have no fear. This evil will be overcome—it is in the High Lord's hands. And your name will be remembered with honor wherever trust is valued."
But Tuvor's eyes held Covenant, and he managed to whisper one word, "True?" His whole body strained with supplication, but Covenant did not know whether he asked for a promise or a judgment.
Yet the Unbeliever answered. He could not refuse a Bloodguard, could not deny the appeal of such expensive fidelity. The word stuck in his throat, but he forced it out. "Yes."
Tuvor shuddered again, and died with a flat groan as if the chord of his Vow had snapped.

Tuvor invests in Covenant—to the exclusion even of Mhoram—the power to pronounce his Vow complete. And his trust isn’t lost on the Unbeliever.

To me, Tuvor's question was a last challenge of Covenant's character. He was asking, "Are you true?" However, you make a very interesting point that I've never considered. Tuvor was there when the original 500 Haruchai spoke the Vow into existence. Perhaps he was asking TC if that extravagance was worth the price.

Regarding Ceer's youth, had Linden's attempted murder of him been successful, the situation would've been very similar to Covenant's rape of Lena. In both instances, a stranger to the Land commits a violent, horrifying act against a young member of the opposite gender. I don't mean to be presumptuous but I do wonder that the dramatic effect on the story would've been much more intense if Linden had taken Ceer's life. Covenant's defense of her in the next chapter (by not allowing her punishment) would've been more dramatic as well.

I'm sorry I haven't responded to this thread before now, Durris. I truly love the way you use a point or two of similarity as a starting point, and expand from there into the differences between the scenes. Each gets put into a new light when compared to the other. Tuvor got the reassurance that Ceer also deserved, but didn't get. Linden got the blame that I don't think she deserved, while the combination of Covenant's reluctance to act at nearly every turn and his ignorance of what was happening to him doesn't seem to bother anyone when Tuvor died.

Excellent Post and Topic Durris!

I've got to agree with dlbpharmd on this one...

dlbpharmd wrote:To me, Tuvor's question was a last challenge of Covenant's character. He was asking, "Are you true?" However, you make a very interesting point that I've never considered. Tuvor was there when the original 500 Haruchai spoke the Vow into existence. Perhaps he was asking TC if that extravagance was worth the price.

I agree with this... I think that Tuvor (My former self ) was asking if it (The Vow) was really worth it... imo, it was not.

Where is Durris?

Not sure. She'll be along soon. I'll wager.

dlbpharmd wrote:Tuvor was there when the original 500 Haruchai spoke the Vow into existence. Perhaps he was asking TC if that extravagance was worth the price.

I think SRD leaves it deliberately ambiguous--even Covenant doesn't know whether Tuvor is asking for "a promise or a judgment," and under the "medical" view of the relationship between TC's life and the Land (i.e., that it makes tangible things going on inside him), perhaps the promise and the judgment are the same thing.

But if I get started on the moral complementarities between TC and the Bloodguard--and their descendants too--we'll be here all night! They have all the innocence TC lost when his "golden boy" period ended, and a capacity for passionate self-giving (to both women and transcendent causes) that TC can no longer afford in the obsessive caution of leprosy. And so he must redeem their fidelity to regain his own wholeness.

dlbpharmd wrote:Regarding Ceer's youth, had Linden's attempted murder of him been successful, the situation would've been very similar to Covenant's rape of Lena. In both instances, a stranger to the Land commits a violent, horrifying act against a young member of the opposite gender. I don't mean to be presumptuous but I do wonder that the dramatic effect on the story would've been much more intense if Linden had taken Ceer's life. Covenant's defense of her in the next chapter (by not allowing her punishment) would've been more dramatic as well.

Interesting point, dlbpharmd. The parallel between Ceer and Lena makes a lot of sense. For reasons I can't articulate, though, I feel that if Linden had completed her crime, even if she had still been saved from retribution, her own trajectory afterward might have been totally different. She would always have known after that that she had not only been capable of repeating her mother's murder, but had actually done so. It might have tipped the scales all the way toward acceding to Gibbon-Raver's "Are you not evil?" as being the whole truth, not just a truth that could be transcended.

Fist wrote:Tuvor got the reassurance that Ceer also deserved, but didn't get.

Flinch. Is true.

Fist wrote: Linden got the blame that I don't think she deserved, while the combination of Covenant's reluctance to act at nearly every turn and his ignorance of what was happening to him doesn't seem to bother anyone when Tuvor died.

Yes, and 99% of Linden's guilt--in every instance (except this one) in which she is judged by the Haruchai or herself--also stems from moral paralysis and inaction. I suppose that no one but she understood the paralysis from inside. All the same, why does Covenant's similar inaction make so much less difference to how the First Chrons. characters saw him?

Darth Revan wrote:I think that Tuvor (My former self ) was asking if it (The Vow) was really worth it... imo, it was not.

Why not, Darth? Is it not better to have loved and lost (the Lords and Revelstone) than never to have loved? (And perhaps--imho--cautiously withholding their fealty, lest it should one day be lost, was never an option available to the Haruchai. To not Vow, they would have had to be different people than they were.)

Durris wrote:But if I get started on the moral complementarities between TC and the Bloodguard--and their descendants too--we'll be here all night!

Durris wrote:

Darth Revan wrote:I think that Tuvor (My former self ) was asking if it (The Vow) was really worth it... imo, it was not.

Why not, Darth? Is it not better to have loved and lost (the Lords and Revelstone) than never to have loved? (And perhaps--imho--cautiously withholding their fealty, lest it should one day be lost, was never an option available to the Haruchai. To not Vow, they would have had to be different people than they were.)

You're right. At least in SRD's creation. The Haruchai CANNOT be other than they are. The MUST take this Vow, because they could not accept gifts without making meet return. And they could not use weapons, because it was in opposition to their collective unconscious/psyche. I believe their strengths and limitations were inextricably bound, as with Eric Liddell in the brief conversation I once quoted from Chariots of Fire.

But in rl, I agree with Darth (God save me!!! ), and with Bannor. Men should not give up wives and sleep and death. Not for anything. Who would ask such a thing? Kevin certainly didn't. And he was not pleased that the Bloodguard did it!

Fist and Faith wrote:But in rl, I agree with Darth (God save me!!! )

Nothing can save you now.

lols.

I think the reason the Harucahi don't use any weapons is because of the way their race has been raised... That is: if you don't have perfect balance, reactions etc, you could die. I mean where they lived, I'd wager many died before they could discipline themselves to survive in that kind of enviroment. So... being the Haruchai... they learnt rely on themselves in such enviroments... and so on... bah! I'm not making sense. Bye.

Durris wrote: ... (And perhaps--imho--cautiously withholding their fealty, lest it should one day be lost, was never an option available to the Haruchai...

I think that statement is not as close to the truth as it may seem. Although bound by their Vow, the Hauchai know doubt. Bannor was clear in his talks with Covenant. Their Vow is powerful and binding, but it is also judgemental. Think of LFB........Birinair is dead....the Second Ward is found......Covenant is attacked by an ur-vile (subsequently slain by Bannor).....cavewights escort Covenant to Kiril Threndor.........Drool attempts to wrest the ring from Covenant......and Bannor does not aid Covenant until he sees that Covenant is indeed an enemy of Drool.....
I do not have my books with me, so I can offer no quote, but Bannor chose to withhold his aid. "We require proof" I believe were his words.

The Vow is as judgemental as it is binding.

ur-bane, this exact scene is discussed in more depth on another thread:

kevinswatch.ihugny.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2994