Kevin's Watch

On another forum someone asked if there was any significance to a Raver using a Demondim to create the ur-viles.
Here' s my answer and additional musings:

Sure he had a hand in it.
I don't see why not.
A Raver created the Banefire.
(Was it his idea or Foul's though? I bet Foul.)

Or are you saying that the UrVile creation was exclusivly a Raver idea?
I doubt it.
The Viles created the Demondim so the knowledge for such future creation must have been there for the Raver to exploit.

I wonder who was the most "powerful" though?
Viles, Demondim or Ur-Viles?
"ur" from another thread means that Ur-Viles should be more powerful than the Viles.
Which leads me to believe that in ranks of POWER it should go:
Vain, UrViles, Demondim, Viles

But the ur-Viles couldn't defeat the Demondim in battle.
But the Demondim were "jacked up" on Ill Earth Stone juice.
I wonder if the ur-viles could have handled their creators if this wasn't so.

And then, are the Viles "noble" or what?

Here's some thought thrown out to the Watch.
I'm just thinking outloud, feel free to comment as you wish:

"Noble" Viles created the Demondim.
High Lord Loric, the Vilesilencer.
Sounds like the Viles turned bad or did they? Maybe Loric "silenced" them with knowledge maybe the Krill isn't just a sword.

We know only that the Demondim were corrupted by a Raver.
Were both the Viles and Demondim originally "good"?

Why do I assume that all 3 races couldn't have existed together (overlapped) during the Old Lords time?
There is nothing that says that they didn't.
Could that one Raver have turned the once benign Demondim and Viles to evil and created bad ur-viles as well?
Quite a feat!


Vain is called "Demondim spawn" repeatedly in the 2nd Chrons.
Why?
Isn't he an ur-Vile spawn?
He's physically different from ur-Viles.
How does "spawning" work?
(If it's like second cousin twice removed, I'll never understand it!)

Viles are spirit like.
Demondim are a combo of spirit and physical form.
ur-Viles are solid form.
Vain is the perfection of solid form.

Whatever happened to the "few surviving ur-viles watched Kiril Threndor
in a reflective pool of acid and barked vindication at Vain's success"?

I know that it was 3000 years ago but I'd like to know what happened.
Are they still around?
There were Waynhim that survived from the Time of Kevin the the New Lords.
Those ur-Viles might still be kicking around.

Wait, were the ur-Viles that are working to aid Linden, time lost through a cearsure? I forget.

Well as far as who is the most powerful I think it is the Demondin.
Demondin defeated the Viles, and then were out of the picture as of the Ritual or Caesure, and Ur-viles were never a real threat by themselves. I mean one of the reasons Kevin's ritual was that he couldn't find a way to beat the Demondin. The Ur-viles could have unmade Vain so I'm not sure he was more powerful than them? So power ranking might be...
Demondin, Viles, Ur-viles, Vain.
Since we never really see the Viles it's kind of hard to judge, but their demise came via the Demondin.

The book doesn't say that a Raver had a hand in anything except to teach the Viles and then the Demondin self-despite. I'm not sure they had a hand in creating anything. I think the Ravers have no 'lore' knowledge i.e. they get that from Foul.

I take spawning to mean 'hatched' as in came out of pools of muck under Mt Thunder. It says nothing about it in the books (?) that I remember but that's just how I imagined it.

And yes the Ur-viles barking at the pool in the end of WGW could very well be the same ones aiding Linden.

Jerico wrote:Well as far as who is the most powerful I think it is the Demondin.
Demondin defeated the Viles, and then were out of the picture as of the Ritual or Caesure, and Ur-viles were never a real threat by themselves. I mean one of the reasons Kevin's ritual was that he couldn't find a way to beat the Demondin. The Ur-viles could have unmade Vain so I'm not sure he was more powerful than them? So power ranking might be...
Demondin, Viles, Ur-viles, Vain.
Since we never really see the Viles it's kind of hard to judge, but their demise came via the Demondin.

I keep reading this in other threads.
I must have missed it in my reads.
Where does it say that the Demondim defeated the Viles and that Kevin couldn't beat them?

And I think that Vain could beat any lone ur-vile as evidenced by the fact that they had to form a wedge to be any threat to him (even hindered as they were by being exposed to the Sunbane)

I don't have Runes with me, but I think it's when Stave is talking about the Demondin?

And It seems I remember Linden telling TC that the sunbane warped Ur-viles could take Vain apart and that's when they Jump in the river on their way to andelain in WGW. If I remember right Findal had to Heal Vain after the attack.

Sorry misread your post. Yes I agree that one on one Vain could beat a single Ur-vile i.e. WWF format.

Jerico wrote:Sorry misread your post. Yes I agree that one on one Vain could beat a single Ur-vile i.e. WWF format.

Vain didn't have to get near the ur-vile, he could have simply gestured and the ur-vile would have been ripped apart.

Interesting that Vain had this ability and his creators did not.

MrKABC wrote:

Jerico wrote:Sorry misread your post. Yes I agree that one on one Vain could beat a single Ur-vile i.e. WWF format.

Vain didn't have to get near the ur-vile, he could have simply gestured and the ur-vile would have been ripped apart.

Interesting that Vain had this ability and his creators did not.

That's because they get more powerful as they "spawn" or evolve.
imho.

If you're motivation to create something is because you hate yourself I'd imagine that you would you strive to make it better than you are.
Next, of course, is what do the Demondim and ur-Vile consider as "better".

Don't forget though, in WGW Linden figures that even these Sunbane warped ur-viles will find a way
to "...un-make him..."

Only because they made him in the first place. They know every last detail of his structure - that's why they could unmake him.

That's some good stuff Lord Tolkien. These creatures in general have been so interesting to me. I think that you shouldn't put Vain in there for comparison as he was a completely different and singular creation. For some reason I think the order would be this for most powerful....

Demondim
Ur-Viles
Viles

For my part, I had always been intrigued from the beginning by the Demondim-spawn and their vaguely mentioned (in the 1st 2 Chrons) forebears.

It was clear from the first that the ur-viles were allies, not slaves, of Foul (in his First Chrons Dark Lord of Ridjeck Thome version), even if individual ur-viles or whole rysh were occasionally abused by Foul or the Ravers. They had their own mysterious agenda, which was only partially revealed, IMO, in the production of Vain.

Waynimh and ur-viles were artificial creations of, and users of, some strange dark lore that works in the universe of the Land, but apparently is not naturally a part of it. Right there is a paradox that needs some explaining. Then, we are finally told in ROTE that the original Viles were some kind of noncorporeal exhalation from Mount Thunder associated with its buried banes. This to me suggests their origins were in Despite and its sabotage of creation.

But now something interesting happens!

The Viles (and how, BTW, do they essentially differ from the IMO very similar Ravers? An innate creative rather than destructive impulse?) somehow get the idea that they need to redeem or justify themselves through the making of new beings. Why did the Viles, of all the warped and alien beings spawned by Despite and its banes, feel this impulse to justify, redeem, transcend themselves and become a natural part of the universe?

So they end up making animated cadavers, the Demondim (paging Dr. Frankenstein!), in an attempt to implement this unexplained agenda; i.e. what I presume to have been their "weird".



The Demondim, in turn, seem to have further refined their strange lore, and eventually produced the ur-viles and Waynimh, odd critters with no eyes. At some point, the Demondim were corrupted by the Raver among them, culminating in the war in which Loric "silenced" them with the krill.

Pause for a few questions now:

Does it seem likely that the pack of Illearth-Stoned Demondim baying after Linden & Co to the doorstep of Revelstone are post-Raver in origin?

Was the power of the Illearth Stone in the Demondim some deliberate calculated act of either the Raver or of the Demondim themselves? Did the Demondim inherently have access to the Illearth Stone's power, or was this a special unprecedented development?

Or was the Illearth Stone, which had resided in the heart of Mt Thunder until Drool Rockworm brought it out, actually the original essence and origin of the Viles themselves (and therefore the spirits animating the Demondim, as well)? After all, if I understood correctly, they were all manifestations of the banes and corruptions Despite had planted in the nascent universe.

And might we suppose the krill of Loric will soon reappear, almost certainly from some secret storeroom in Revelstone, possibly the same one in which the heels of the Staff were stashed in WGW? (If so, I'd expect it to appear fairly early in Fatal Revenant, given the situation at the end of ROTE) And when it does, we might get to see what it actually does when it's used as Loric designed it?

** edit ** Just reminded the krill was left in Caer-Caveral's stump in Andelain after Sunder stabbed him. So it might be less likely to appear, or at least involve more effort on TC & Linden's part to recover. Be that as it may, I'd be surprised if it was never mentioned at all in connection with the Demondim threat with which we are left hanging at the end of ROTE.


To continue:

The weird of the ur-viles apparently was creation of a perfect being who would in some way justify their own existence. So long as Foul grudgingly gave them unspecified aid and resources toward this end, they were willing to serve him as allies. As we know, Vain was the end product of this effort, he represented a betrayal of Foul, and Foul retaliated against the ur-viles for it.

I guess that only when the ur-viles neared the achievement of their agenda in Vain, the cause in which Vain would be used, undoing the Sunbane, became apparent. And they surely understood their own limitations in this regard, and therefore 'programmed' Vain to seek out that which the ur-viles could not provide which would complete him and enable him to fulfill his mission. So Vain + Findail = pure structure implemented in dark alien lore (possibly ultimately originating from Despite) + pure spirit essence of the Earthpower incorporated into creation = restored Law.

Now, in TOT, some very interesting thinds happened at Elesmedene never fully explained. The Elohim attempted to trap and imprison (if not destroy) Vain. LInden recalled "Vain had approached the clachan with an air of excitement, as if the prospect of it pleased him, " -- i.e. he knew he was drawing near to a particular cusp or objective toward his purpose. Chant's explanation had always just intrigued the hell out of me:

He was a peril to us. His dark makers spawned him for our harm. He was an offense to our Wurd, directed with great skill and malice to force us from our path. This we will never endure, just as we have not endured your anile desires. We have imprisoned him.

Did the Elohim think that Vain, or anything else the ur-viles might do, could conceivably harm them? Were the ur-viles, or the Demondim, more powerful than the Elohim? (or like Foul, being apparently ultimately manifestations of Despite and its banes, were "beings of another kind entirely" against which the Elohim were effectless?) Did the Elohim, given that they themselves were by the time of TOT blemished or corrupted by Foul and/or the Sunbane, believe them so capable and inclined? Did they perceive that Vain could change the very nature of an Elohim?

But Chant had said of Vain's purpose, "...directed...to force us from our path." Obviously the ur-viles had their own strategy against the Sunbane and Foul, while the Elohim had theirs. It would seem the ur-viles were ultimately proven more-or-less right, while the approach attempted by the Elohim was wrong (except in the sense they provided Findail, but he wasn't used in the manner the Elohim intended). Surprise, surprise, the Elohim were not infallible, and they even lost out in that case to the ur-viles and their unnatural lore. What gives? (the corruption of the Elohim /Earthpower by Foul/Sunbane?)

Findail did say, as Covenant, Linden, and the others were entering Mount Thunder near the end of the Second Chronicles, that the Elohim had misinterpreted their Wurd.
Covenant commented in The One Tree that Chant thought his right was the only right there was (that's an approximation, not a quote.)
Cail said to Linden: Does Corruption not always believe in it's own rightness?
And the Elohim said that everything that happened in the world, was a reflection of themselves.

Taking all of the above, I am guessing that ...

When Lord Foul created the Sunbane, he did not afflict the Earthpower (I hereby cast this spell upon the Earthpower of the Land, and it shall be changed!) with rot. What he did, is that he afflicted the Elohim with rot, and the Sunbane arose from that corruption - the corruption of the Elohim.
Chant echoes this corruption when he says his is the only right, which is what the Haruchai define as how Lord Foul thinks: we see the Elohim thinking like Lord Foul, which sounds like they were corrupted to me. Or, at least, some of them were ... and some of the world (the Land) was also corrupted. (Once the Sunbane spread to the rest of the world, I am guessing Daphine and the rest of the Elohim would have been corrupted as Chant was.)
When the ur-viles created Vain, this was a reflection off the Elohim, since everything that happens elsewhere is a reflection of the Elohim. And thus the work of the ur-viles changed the Elohim by default (the doings of anyone and anything in the world would change the Elohim in small ways or big ways, if everything in the world is a reflection of the Elohim.) Thus Chant is telling the truth in this regard: the ur-viles did change the Elohim, and in a way the Elohim did not want, forcing them to Appoint Findail (and really infuriating the corrupted Elohim, such as Chant.) by creating Vain.
And Findail realized that his people had been corrupted, but he did not really appreciate the magnitude of that corruption, until the Sunbane broke into Andelain and the disaster that followed shocked him into taking another look at things. This new look led to better insight, but Findail was still out to preserve Findail, and not to do anything to help Linden or Covenant.

That make sense?

Caer Bombadil wrote:The Viles (and how, BTW, do they essentially differ from the IMO very similar Ravers? An innate creative rather than destructive impulse?)

From all of your very interesting remarks, I have to single this one out, because it's so interesting (to me) that I actually have something to say about it. . . .

We are told that the Ravers were 'three brothers of one birth' from a time long before Foul came to the Spoiled Plains. Clearly with incorporeal beings like the Ravers, we should be prepared to take the word 'birth' figuratively. Could it be that the Ravers were originally Viles themselves, who somehow stumbled on a way to possess living flesh? (That would help to explain how they could guide the Viles to the making of the Demondim, who have the power to possess dead flesh.)

If this (rather wild) conjecture is correct, then perhaps turiya was a Kinslaughterer long before he took Giant form and massacred the Unhomed. It was he and moksha, we're told, who led the Viles to create the Demondim; and the Demondim wiped out the Viles. Perhaps the Viles (who are described in LFB as a 'high and lofty race') were so appalled by the outcome of their breeding experiments that they submitted more or less tamely to the slaughter, as the Giants would do so many centuries later.

Or have I missed something that makes this whole idea nonsensical?

Caer Bombadil wrote:Did the Elohim think that Vain, or anything else the ur-viles might do, could conceivably harm them?

I think you answered yourself, CB. The "harm" and "offense" is exactly what Chant says - forcing the Elohim from their path, which they consider to be "malice". There is no physical harm here, or such like, although the authors intent might be that we misbelieve this.

Anyone have a take on my take of this? Just curious.

Edelaith, I am sorry to say that I cannot concur with the idea you presented.

Edelaith wrote:When Lord Foul created the Sunbane, he did not afflict the Earthpower (I hereby cast this spell upon the Earthpower of the Land, and it shall be changed!) with rot. What he did, is that he afflicted the Elohim with rot, and the Sunbane arose from that corruption - the corruption of the Elohim.

In my estimation, had this been the case, Elemesnedene and the clachan itself would then be the source of the Sunbane. Had the Elohim been afflicted directly, why then would the Sunbane manifest itself in the Land, so far from the "heart" of the Elohim?

Edelaith wrote:Chant echoes this corruption when he says his is the only right, which is what the Haruchai define as how Lord Foul thinks: we see the Elohim thinking like Lord Foul, which sounds like they were corrupted to me.

IMHO, it is not a matter of thinking like Lord Foul, but simple arrogance on the part of the Elohim. They do not interfere in the world unless absolutely necessary. In their blind arrogance they feel above any moral stricture that would cause a mere mortal to act in defense of the Earth.
One i sonly Appointed when it becomes obvious that no other means exists. And even then it is done with resentment.
Why should the Elohim sacrifice themselves to millenia of loss of life and love and name when the lowly mortal inhabitants of the earth, such as Linden and Covenant would seem a better sacrifice to achieve that end?

Edelaith wrote:When the ur-viles created Vain, this was a reflection off the Elohim, since everything that happens elsewhere is a reflection of the Elohim.

I see this in another light. The Elohim were threatened by Vain not because he was a "reflection of the Elohim," rather it was because they understood the requirement necessary to fulfill Vain's purpose. That purpose required the sacrifice of one of their own, which as we all know is not something the Elohim do with vigor and eagerness. In fact, it is something they try to avoid.
So knowing that one of their own was required to meet Vain's purpose, and they wanted to avoid the outcome, they Appointed Findail. But even then, it was not intended as help, but as hindrance. Findail was not Appointed to save the Earth, but was Appointed to stop Vain fulfilling his purpose. Selfish arrogance on display, once again.

Sure, Chant had found a "darkness" within him. But IMHO that darkness was not Corruption as we know it in the Land. It was the result of absence of true knowledge and truth. Chant's behavior was a direct result of an unwanted awareness of being imperfect. A realization that he sought to negate, and so the outward guise that we see. His arrogance did not permit imperfection, and his bitterness arose from the fact that the darkness was a blemish that should have been an impossibility.

Edelaith wrote:And Findail realized that his people had been corrupted, but he did not really appreciate the magnitude of that corruption, until the Sunbane broke into Andelain and the disaster that followed shocked him into taking another look at things.

Again I beg to differ.
Findail's realization was not that his brethren were corrupted, but that their inaction and unwillingness to partake of the world outside their clachan was a misinterpretation of their Wurd. That because of what they were, it was required that they preserve the Earth which they inhabit. It was a responsibility that the Elohim deliberately overlooked. I quote Rush:"Ignorance and prejudice and fear walk hand in hand." In their arrogance the Elohim are just that. Ignorant and fearful. And that breeds a prejudice against themselves, that they need not partake of affairs outside their clachan unless they are directly threatened.

Now, feel free to shoot me down, and drag my bloody body through Doriendor Corishev.

In my estimation, had this been the case, Elemesnedene and the clachan itself would then be the source of the Sunbane. Had the Elohim been afflicted directly, why then would the Sunbane manifest itself in the Land, so far from the "heart" of the Elohim?

Could it be because Earthpower is so more readily accessible in the Land? In other words, because Earthpower lies so close to the surface there?

I see this in another light. The Elohim were threatened by Vain not because he was a "reflection of the Elohim," rather it was because they understood the requirement necessary to fulfill Vain's purpose. That purpose required the sacrifice of one of their own, which as we all know is not something the Elohim do with vigor and eagerness. In fact, it is something they try to avoid.

i agree

I'm not going to shoot you down.
I was only speculating myself. The Elohim are so frustrating and sometimes so difficult to understand it is infuriating. I have always wondered what Findail meant when he said the Elohim misunderstood their Wurd. You've given me the first plausible explanation for what he meant, that I've heard since I read White Gold Wielder 20 years ago.
The Viles, their Demondim offspring, and their offspring, the Ur-Viles and Waynhim, are just as mystifying.

As for Findail, he was obviously out to preserve himself at all costs, even if it meant the deaths of many other, innocent people.
But Findail could have used his power to slow the onslaught of the Sunbane against Andelain. I believe that. And I believe he refused to do so to pressure, once again, Covenant into giving Linden the Ring, so he'd be off the hook.
In this, Findail committed a crime worthy of death, and sentence was passed and justice enacted in Kiril Threndor.

My theory given in the post above was based on Chants' statement to Covenant that everything Out There (in the World) was a reflection of Elemes. and the Elohim. But I think Chant was distorting the truth, whether to further his own ends or because of his bitterness or due to external corruption, or all of them combined.

The Elohim are indeed frustrating.

To me, the most frustrating aspect is that they have the power to resist if not to defeat the manipulations of Despite. They sit there untouchable in their clachan while the world around them battles for its very survival.

And the thought never once occurs to them that if they actively partake in the preservation of the Earth on a regular basis, the need to Appoint one of their own may in fact be unnecessary. But no! They wait until the threat is so great that their ONLY option is Appointing one to save the Earth. And I thought Elena was blind. AARGH!