Question about TCs summons (TPTP/TWL)

[paulcoz]

** SPOILER WARNING **

Hi, I have a few questions:

(On the subject of Summons)

In The Wounded Land (Soothtell), Covenant muses that the reason his summons to the land was so elaborate (eg. Joan/The Ritual at the beginning of the book) was because the Staff of Law had been destroyed and other means had to be employed to accomplish this task. However, as the chapter also describes, Covenant was only summoned to the Land in TPTP without the Staff when -near death from exhaustion and rattlesnake venom- after the breaking of the Law of Death.

(1) If he was only *near* death in TPTP and not in fact dead, then how could the Law of Death figure in the summons at all?

In TWL, he does in fact die (ignoring anything that may happen in the third series, which I haven't read). At least, he relates during the Soothtell that one of the conditions of his summons in TWL was death, and he certainly looks dead as a dodo in the real world at the end of WGW. In this respect, the reference to the breaking of the Law of Death makes some sense in the context of TWL summons. There are some implications for The Land's reality though (see the second subject of my post).

I think it may have been more credible for SRD to say that there was another method of summoning outsiders to The Land without the Staff of Law that was unrelated to the Law of Death. When you read TPTP and disregard any knowledge of the 2nd Chronicles, this seems to be the case (from memory). IMO, acknowledging the breaking of The Law of Death as a relevant factor in either summons occuring in the real world, weakens Covenant's (and our) Unbelief.

(2) Could this little detail be a good indication that when SRD was writing the 2nd Chronicles, he was trying to make use of events in the 1st as he went? Does anyone know whether SRD had the plot planned for the 2nd series as he wrote the 1st OR did he just try to fit the 2nd around the 1st afterwards?

(On the subject of The Land's reality)

I am concerned about the implications the elaborate summons in TWL has for Covenant's Unbelief. I understand that SRD has said that whether or not the Land is real is irrelevant, it's how Covenant responds that is important. That's all very well, but some of the events in TWL seems to be a clear case of those in The Land reaching out and actually affecting the actions of those in the real world (the religious freaks, Joan's "possession"). There's also the fact that in the real world, we see Lord Foul's eyes in the fire before the summons. These things suggest The Land IS real and cannot be easily explained away.

On top of this, there appears to be a material/spiritual/metaphysical link between the breaking of The Law of Death in The Land and Covenant's death/summons in the real world. Why would Covenant have to be at a particular location, experiencing a specific pain, lying in a triangle of blood, demonstrating freedom of choice *in the real world* for the summons? Isn't that akin to shouting 'The Land is as real as our own'? Else, the Soothtell was wrong. Or, perhaps Covenant was just hypothesising at the time and his guesses about the circumstances of both summons were incorrect?

Obviously, this topic has been talked about before so I won't dwell on it. Perhaps if you don't have time to discuss the points I have raised in this second topic, you can just point me in the direction of information which list arguments for and against the reality of The Land.

Thanks and sorry to bore you all with this long post (my first here!),

[amanibhavam]

bumped two old topics for you, both in the line of isthelandrealornot

[paulcoz]

Thanks amanibhavam! It seems that a lot of people (including myself) consider the land's reality in the first chronicles as brilliantly (maddeningly!) ambiguous, but almost a given in the second.

Do you have any comments regarding my first two questions / the initial topic of the post?