Surely Linden has served Despite...

[Glaive]

...Anyone not having read the book turn back now; don't want no bitching that you weren't warned.

On the first read-through, were any of you thinking that Linden and Company going back in time to retrieve the Staff of Law was a BAD thing?
OK,I can see Linden's reasoning, "Anele lost the Staff of Law 3 and a half millenia ago, I'm able to travel in time using the caesures and bring it back to the present."

That was the basic premise; yet, surely she should of realised that she would be basically removing the Staff from the Land for 3.5 millenia...in my mind, she should of located the Staff in the past, and hidden it in such a way only she and her companions would know about and then returned to their 'present' and 'located' it again...Surely, the lack of the Staff is what allowed Foul to gain a new toe-hold in the Land.

I'm looking at this purely from before she flipped through the Fall; Esmer is the big block to my question...if he hadn't arrived Linden could of cured the Waynhim guarding the Staff, said basically, "Keep up the good work, I'll see you in 3500 years" and left...Esmer appears to be betrayer and redeamer...bit like Covenant really. [/b]

[Fist and Faith]

Yikes!!!!!!! That's an excellent point!!!! The Staff's influence removed from the Land all those millennia.... Wow! I wonder if Kevin's Dirt would not have been possible if the Staff had been there all along.

[Edge]

Well technically, until Linden went back to get it, it had been there all along

[Glaive]

True, but she decided that the reason it couldn't be found was that she had *already* gone back to retrieve it...a premise that if not proven false was at least ambiguous.

[brinn18]

well technically the staff wasnt there, because althought Linden went back into the past from the future, the event actually occured in the past.... paradox anyone.

[High Lord Tolkien]

Well technically, until Linden went back to get it, it had been there all along

ARRGGHHHH......!!!!

My...brain....is.....starting.....to....hurt!!!!

Need...Capt. Kirk.... to... explain...it....all......simplified....to.....me......

[Glaive]

Unfortunately it depends on what version of 'time-travel' Donaldson is using...it appears to be 'circular' or 'rubber-band', yet we haven't enough info.

Beware 'Terminator' forums...they WILL mess with your head!

[dlbpharmd]

I definitely believe that Linden going back into the past and bringing the SoL to the present was a bad thing. There's no way that Kevin's Dirt (yet another corruption of Earthpower) could have occured in the Staff's presence.

[Creator]

I wonder why Covenant told her to find the staff?

If the time-travel version SRD used has the effects of Linden's time travel and staff retrieval (Kevin's Dirt) happen before the cause (her trip in the Caesure) does that mean it was pre-ordained?

If so, it isn't her fault! (even tho I think she is whinny and annoying!)

[CovenantJr]

I can see SRD using the "proper" version of time travel, as I see it. That is, that anything Linden does in the past is already done, because she's already been in that location and performed that act.

As regards stashing the Staff somewhere in order to find it later - is it possible to guarantee that it would still be sitting there untouched after nearly 4000 years?

[W.B.]

...Esmer is the big block to my question...if he hadn't arrived Linden could of cured the Waynhim guarding the Staff, said basically, "Keep up the good work, I'll see you in 3500 years" and left...Esmer appears to be betrayer and redeamer...bit like Covenant really.

It seemed that Esmer showed up at the Waynhim's hideout after he had called the caesure for Linden (i.e. he called it, she and her companions entered it, his nature demanded he do something awful since he'd done something helpful, so he went back in time to do something awful). So if Linden had said "Good job," healed the Waynhim, and left them and the staff with them before Esmer arrived, there's the possibility he would have showed up and fouled up the Waynhim or the staff...or the Waynhim could not have withstood all those years without another healing from the staff. I don't recall mention of how long the effects of her healing would last, if they continued to keep the staff.

Anyway...if she had left the staff in the care of the Waynhim, then what had happened to it when she arrived in the Land at the start of RotE? I'm guessing that's because this is following CovenantJr's "proper version" of time travel and it's not there because she traveled back in time and removed it. That seems kind of pre-ordained to me, not in a "meant to be" religious/spiritual sense, but just that there's one timeline, and in that one timeline, those were the choices that she made. She made the choice to get the staff because she deduced from its absence that she made the choice to get the staff. What do they call that in time-travel circles? Paradox...causality loop? I usually try not to think very hard about these things, to avoid headaches....

I guess Linden's potential service to Despite depends on what the ultimate cause of Kevin's Dirt turns out to be. If Linden hadn't decided to retrieve the staff, however, there's no telling whether it would have been destroyed (Esmer again?) or in some other way rendered useless. In the cosmology of TCTC do bad things sometimes have to happen as preconditions for good things?

[CovenantJr]

She made the choice to get the staff because she deduced from its absence that she made the choice to get the staff.

Exactly. I find it far more likely that SRD will do that, than go all Back to the Future on us

[W.B.]

So you don't think that at the end of the book (it's a RotE AND Back to the Future spoiler!)

Spoiler

Covenant is racing to Revelstone with Jeremiah after writing Linden a letter warning her to wear a bulletproof vest?

[Glaive]

Great SCOTT!!

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

I have the feeling that Linden is definately doing some really really bad things... I get it more from the descriptions of her thoughts than anything. I mean, she's going into it with the idea that she'll doom the whole Land for her son. How easy is that for the despiser?

[duchess of malfi]

You guys are forgetting about what Mhoram told Covenant in the Second Chrons -- that the Despisers snares are everywhere, and you can't avoid them.

Sometimes people have to do what their hearts tell them is the right thing to do.

[Lord Wombat]

I look at it this way--

Something like Kevin's Dirt couldn't happen with the Staff of Law in play.

But it did happen. Ergo, it's pretty logical for Linden to conclude the Staff is already out of action in her time.

Since things did not, in fact, change in any meaningful way on her return to the 'present', we have to conclude she did something which is already part of the timeline and doesn't make things any worse.

Now, the Demondim being brought to the present, that DOES make things worse, but she also brought the Staff of Law, which is going to be needed to stop them.


She did something dangerous, but it was logical to think it worth the risk.

[TincupCPG]

There is actually something else to consider as well. The original Staff of Law was lost for 1,000 years after the Ritual of Desecration. BUT, it was not destroyed, merely not found. It was still there upholding it's natural Law even tho it was "lost". Lord Foul came back and started messing with the Land and it's people even before the Staff was found by Drool. Clearly, the Staff and Earthpower alone are not enough to effectively combat Despite. After all, where did Lord Foul have to retreat to after the Ritual?? He was forced to take place at the very limits of the thing he hates: Earthpower. And Earthpower and the Staff of Law by themselves could not stop him. Now, I agree that Linded hosed it when she brought the Staff back from the past. (I don't like her anyways) So, it is possible and maybe even likely that Kevin's Dirt was created BY someone....and the Eartpower, without the Staff, couldn't resist it. So Kevin's Dirt grew and spread. That is not an accident. And also, so far in the very little time she has had the Staff in the present, we see it can temp restore Healthsite to people. Can it remove it altogether? I think yes! This new Staff is only limited by the frailty of the person weilding it. Avery can "see" with the Staff, so might be able to do something about it. I posted a couple of theories on this in the topic "Haruchai". Interesting

[native]

Lord Foul has obviously watched Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey.

'Too late, evil dude. After we beat you, we went back in time and took all the bullets out of your gun' was the general thought IIRC

[PitchDude]

Ok, first off.... Run for it Marty!

Second, I have to agree - she's doing some messy stuff. Has it occurred to anyone that her sole purpose in The Land is to get back her son? There's really been no serious plan to 'oppose' or 'destroy' or 'further diminish' Lord Foul. That seems suspect to me.

With regard to the whole causality discussion, I wonder if, at the moment she vowed to NOT go back in time to 'steal' the staff, if the whole 'Kevin's Dirt' thing would have ceased to exist.

In the words of Chief O'Brian, "I hate temporal dynamics."

Jim