On the Nature of White Gold

[Lucky Jim]

Like most people here I've read and re-read the first two chronicles multiple times. I've had the opportunity from my adolescence to my late 20s to digest and reflect upon the various things that were excellent in the books.

Of these, the chief amongst them was the idea, so deftly brought to realization in the 6th book, that Covenant was in fact the white gold. My understanding, eventually, came to be that the tool, white gold, was immaterial in relation to the person which embodied it - that the prophecies, when they referred to "white gold", were merely naming Covenant himself. I thought this an elegant and interesting answer.

Imagine my surprise when in Runes it turns out that white gold is actually a run of the mill source of power. Anyone can use it. Joan, who's crazy. Roger, who views it as a talisman of might and tries to secure it from his mother. Why doesn't he simply sell the farm and visit a local jeweller?

I have faith in Donaldson. But this seems a strange and unwelcome turn of events.

[Creator]

I don't think you need to be dismayed.

I still see Covenant as the "white gold". However, his wedding band is how he "connects" to the Wild Magic he emboddies. I would accept that Joan's wedding band shares the same ability to connect to Covenant. [He willingness to sacrifice himself for Joan showed a continuing connection.] Roger, the product of their union, would of course have an equal path.

I don't think ANY white gold would work. If so, Lord Fould could just of had Roger buy a bunch and hop over to the Land!

[dlbpharmd]

I agree with Creator. There is something uniquely special about Covenant's and Joan's wedding bands, and I hope that SRD will reveal that to us in time.

[Jerico]

It could go back to TC and Joan's actual wedding. That could be the moment the Land came into being. Then the Ritual of Desicration would be his leprosy, the sunbane would be Joan's despair over what she had done, etc...
If Joan ever comes back to herself she could have the same power as TC as far as wiping out the Land, or taking out the arch.

[lurch]

..What about the whole..the white gold ring had to be Given ,,to be of any value..as in ,,it wasn't of any value to Lord Snotty Snitt if he just took it..It had to be given to him...This relates back to the accquiesence of our Selves to the strange and ugly. The Choice ..therefore the Power to Not Make That Choice that leads into despair. ..The white gold ring represents the Choice,,the wild magic is the power unleashed,,,Making a committment of choice,,as TC did with his unbelief and refusal to unleash the wildmagic..he found out eventually( his arch if you will),,that the purety of his convictions was flawed,,and in admitting or realizing his less than perfect state,,he had the power to change and get it right..Claiming perfection is not where its at. Knowing one is foulable and therefore always checking and challenging , questioning,,,is the real nature of modern man. This is the modern romantic notion,,incubated by Goethe in his excruiatingly dramatised orginal manifestation of Lord , I Think I Fouled My Pants,,of course I mean,,mephistopholes...in the play..Dr. Faustus.......IMHO anyway........................MEL

[Lucky Jim]

I don't think you need to be dismayed.

I still see Covenant as the "white gold". However, his wedding band is how he "connects" to the Wild Magic he emboddies. I would accept that Joan's wedding band shares the same ability to connect to Covenant. [He willingness to sacrifice himself for Joan showed a continuing connection.] Roger, the product of their union, would of course have an equal path.

I anticipated this line of reasoning prior to posting. The problem is that it falls apart on examination.

I'll grant you that the actual material (ie the alloy) might merely be a tool of kinds. But what does that say of the manifestations of power exhibited by others in wielding it? If the white gold (Covenant) is able to see expression through the tool's use, then what is revealed in the caesures? Power, obviously. Should we name it anything else other then white gold power?

In other words, the distinction between white gold as Covenant/tool as white gold has been blurred.

This brings us to your answer, which relies on the notion that somehow a second instance of the tool is able to tap into Covenant's fundamental nature. This is problematic in the extreme. It speaks to a kind of unwilling posession of power that fails to make sense in light of the strictures that lurch raises. Principally those relating to free will.

I don't think ANY white gold would work. If so, Lord Fould could just of had Roger buy a bunch and hop over to the Land!

Yet, if we accept the logic of what we've been presented to date, one is left with the unhappy conclusion that Roger could have done just that.

[Fist and Faith]

First...
I think Joan is the white gold just as much as Covenant is, and there are many others also. I think the Creator picked Covenant in LFB for the reasons he gave in Leper's End.

"Despair is an emotion like any other. It is the habit of despair which damns, not the despair itself. You were a man already acquainted with habit and despair-with the Law which both saves and damns. Your knowledge of your illness made you wise."

Basically, the Creator thought that Covenant had what it would take to be true.

Second...
I think the wild magic is in everyone. I think it's our passion. But it can only be accessed with white gold. However, you can't just pick up something in the jewelry store, go to the Land, and have power. Their wedding bands mean a whole freakin' lot to Covenant and Joan, and it is this meaning that lets the talisman access the wild magic. Lots of people from Covenant's "real world" must have white gold items of great meaning to them, and could have used wild magic with them in the Land. But the Creator chose Covenant.

Third...
I don't think Troy was using his own wild magic when Covenant gave him his ring. I think that when Covenant gave Troy the ring, he gave Troy permission to use his - Covenant's - wild magic. An "I grant you access to my soul" kind of thing. If Troy, or Foul, had taken the ring by force, they would not have had Covenant's permission. Torturing Covenant until he gave up the ring wouldn't have done it, because it wouldn't have been truly given. Foul needed to make Covenant want to give it up.

[Warmark Jay]

I said this in another thread a while back:

Seems to me that the crux of the argument is TC's realization/revelation at the end of WGW; that Covenant himself gives the white gold its ultimate potency. Others (Linden, Troy) can use wild magic to an extent, but that ultimate power derives from the fact that its origins are uniquely HIS. This is the importance of the symbolism of TC's ring being a wedding band; its purpose was unique, as it was made to fit (literally and symbolically) Covenant and Covenant alone. In a sense, a wedding band defines the wearer. In that, Linden can never hope to obtain that level of power - because the white gold is not, and cannot, truly be hers, even if given freely. (When I say "white gold", I'm referring to that specific ring.)

The other symbolic element of white gold is that it's an alloy, a mixture of metals. And this also fits in with the marriage metaphor; Covenant being one half of the mix, and Joan being the other.

Now, all of this would logically fit IF white gold is the source of wild magic, rather than a conduit. If Joan is, either knowingly or unknowingly, creating the caesures, this would seem to be a feat that only Covenant or Foul could perform. So I think that we're going to learn a whole lot more about Joan, and how she sees the Land. Remember, she was once a happy wife and mother, and in a sense suffered the same type of loss as Covenant. She knows despair, and presumably guilt, and that (as Covenant has said) gives her power.

[The Pumpkin King]

It has to have some link to Joan and Covenant...

...Otherwise, Lord Foul would simply summon Mr. T to the Land, if he was in need of gold.

[dlbpharmd]

She knows despair, and presumably guilt, and that (as Covenant has said) gives her power.

Excellent point!

[Warmark Jay]

I think Joan is going to be crucial to the story in ways we haven't thought of. Example: in chapter one of LFB, it's mentioned that TC and Joan lived off of her salary while he was a struggling writer - and her job was breaking horses. I've got a feeling that this will somehow tie in to the crucial place the Ranyhyn occupy in the "Last Chronicles" plotline. On some level, what TC and Linden have done and experienced - and the emotional marks that those experiences have left - in "the real world" carries over to the Land and takes on monumental significance. That must apply to Joan as well, and the Ranyhyn's ability to travel through the caesures has to have some connection to Joan's skill with horses. Add to that their respect for/subservience to the white gold (and he/she who wields it), and we have some potentially interesting developments in store...

[wayfriend]

I think Joan is going to be crucial to the story in ways we haven't thought of.

Doesn't it say at some point that Joan is "the summoner" in this series? (As opposed to Lord Foul.) If so, then that would be crucial.

[The Pumpkin King]

I think Joan is going to be crucial to the story in ways we haven't thought of.

Doesn't it say at some point that Joan is "the summoner" in this series? (As opposed to Lord Foul.) If so, then that would be crucial.

I don't remember that...

If I'm really unobservant (and probably am), though, that's big. REALLY big.

Remember what happened to Drool, Foamfollower, Elena, etc?

[Warmark Jay]

Doesn't it say at some point that Joan is "the summoner" in this series? (As opposed to Lord Foul.) If so, then that would be crucial.

I gotta read ROTE again; kind of tore through it in a frenzied glee the first time around. But yeah, that would be pretty huge. And another interesting way she's made use of the white gold. Raising yet another question - if white gold gives Joan the power to summon, why didn't TC summon Linden back to the Land in time of need?

[drew]

Don't forget that Both the creator and Foul had a say in who got summoned in the first place. Foul just needed some white gold-Well the Creator Created the arch with white-gold as the Keystone-so it was his choice as to who would get sommoned in the first place.

Basically, Foul reached into our world, and the creator put Covenant into his hand.

[The Pumpkin King]

Perhaps white gold isn't so much a POWER as a KEY.

Perhaps it draws upon the strength of the person that uses it, just as the Staff of Law draws upon the Earthpower it's founded on?

[Warmark Jay]

Perhaps white gold isn't so much a POWER as a KEY.

Perhaps it draws upon the strength of the person that uses it, just as the Staff of Law draws upon the Earthpower it's founded on?

I think that's where SRD is taking the idea, but I'd say it draws upon the whole being of the person that wields it; TC's internal conflict between his resolve (a strength) and his guilt (a weakness) is a paradox. I think we can all agree that there must be something unique to Covenant that gives him this level of power.

[wayfriend]

Doesn't it say at some point that Joan is "the summoner" in this series? (As opposed to Lord Foul.) If so, then that would be crucial.

I gotta read ROTE again; kind of tore through it in a frenzied glee the first time around. But yeah, that would be pretty huge.

I double checked it last night. I found it stated in two places. Once during the summoning - right after she realizes the Raver has possessed Joan. The other is in the next chapter. Sorry I didn't pull the quotes ...

Perhaps white gold isn't so much a POWER as a KEY.

... or a 'means of articulation'. This was made quite plain:

Linden shrugged away his disclaimer. "Then what you're saying," she murmured slowly, "is that the power of wild magic comes from Covenant himself? The ring is just his-his means of articulation?"

He nodded. "I believe that to be sooth.

[Warmark Jay]

Linden shrugged away his disclaimer. "Then what you're saying," she murmured slowly, "is that the power of wild magic comes from Covenant himself? The ring is just his-his means of articulation?"

He nodded. "I believe that to be sooth.

White gold, then, is like the magnifying glass burning the ants - it brings his power into focus. So SRD is leading us further down the path of the nature of these objects of power (the krill, the Staff of Law, etc.). You could say that all of them serve to articulate the power of the holder. Which brings us back to the question of the source of the WIELDER'S power. And that source seems to be the mixture of passion and guilt so prevalent in TC and Linden - and now, seemingly, Joan. LFB really opened my eyes to her possibilities - she would do anything to protect her son from leprosy, even if that meant sacrificing her marriage. (And, when TC has a case of writer's block, she chooses to jeopardize that marriage by leaving him for a time so that TC could focus on his writing - another arguably selfless act). On some level, she must be plagued with guilt for abandoning her husband when he needed her the most.

Joan has a lot more in common with TC and Linden than meets the eye.

Roger, on the other hand...what a punk.

[Lucky Jim]

Second...
I think the wild magic is in everyone. I think it's our passion. But it can only be accessed with white gold. However, you can't just pick up something in the jewelry store, go to the Land, and have power. Their wedding bands mean a whole freakin' lot to Covenant and Joan, and it is this meaning that lets the talisman access the wild magic. Lots of people from Covenant's "real world" must have white gold items of great meaning to them, and could have used wild magic with them in the Land. But the Creator chose Covenant.

That's somewhat of a rational answer. Still, kind of cheapens the idea, no? Brings to mind the notion of a pool of white gold wielders from which the creator might have chosen from. Hmm...Jon Smith has a white gold plated lighter, it means a great deal to him (his dear departed father gave it to him). What about Judy Hendricks, she has a white gold broach bought for her by her estranged son... And so on. I'd prefer to believe there was an inconsistency in the logic then that it was some kind of white gold draft pick situation, lol.

Anyway, it seems relatively clear to me that there's something unique about Covenant. Or at least it seems clear that such was the initial intent in the writing.