Is The Land Evil?

[Planatarian]

The Ill Earthstone poses a bit of a problem to the logical integrity of the Covenant books. It means that The Land itself is partially evil and contains within itself the seeds of its own dissolution. And if it doesn't what exactly is the nature of its goodness? In Tolkien, Middle Earth was not the object of Saurons enmity. Human Beings were.

[matrixman]

Hello, Planatarian. Welcome to the Watch! This Q&A from Donaldson's Gradual Interview at his website may hopefully answer your question:

Pier Giorgio (Xar): Dear Mr. Donaldson,

I just realized that time and again, all Laws that were broken in the Land that I can think of were broken because the Land itself, directly or not, provided the means to do that. What I mean is, without the EarthBlood, no Law of Death would have been broken; without a Forestal, no Law of Life would have been broken; and so on. Not even Foul with the Illearth Stone could apparently break the Law of Death without the unwitting assistance of Elena.

So, is this another facet of Covenant's belief that to have power (in this case, Earthpower) one (the Land) cannot be wholly innocent (in this case, by placing within the very Earthpower the possibility of "guilt", intended as the destruction of natural Laws)? In other words, that for the Land to be rich in Earthpower, it must also "accept" the fact that it holds within itself the seeds of its fall, whereas to avoid holding those seeds (being "innocent"), the Land couldn't hold Earthpower either (and therefore would be "powerless")? Or am I just rationalizing?

That's quite a question! I'm not sure I can do it justice. But here's how I look at it.

You're a Creator; and you want to create a world that will be an organic whole, a living, breathing entity, rather than a mere mechanical extrapolation of your own personality and preferences. So how do you accomplish that goal? The obvious answer is: give the inhabitants of your world--or perhaps even the world itself--free will. Allow them to use or misuse as they see fit whatever your world happens to contain. Therefore they must be equally capable of both preserving and destroying your creation. QED.

When you look at it that way, the fact that the powers in the Land can be used to break the Laws which preserve the Land is sort of a "Duh." That *has* to be true. Otherwise your world is nothing more than an exercise in ego, a piece of machinery which exists solely to glorify you.

Such "Covenant"-esque ideas as "innocence is impotence" and "only the guilty have power" are inferences drawn from the basic precepts of free will. They might be rephrased thus: only a person who has truly experienced the consequences of his/her own destructive actions is qualified to evaluate--is, indeed, capable of evaluating--his/her future actions in order to make meaningful choices between destruction and preservation. Hile Troy is an interesting example. He's "innocent" in a way that Covenant is not: he's never done anything even remotely comparable to the rape of Lena. As a result, he's bloody dangerous. He literally doesn't know what he's doing: he hasn't learned the kind of humility that comes from meeting his own inner Despiser face-to-face. Therefore, in spite of all his good intentions, he makes decisions which bear an ineluctable resemblence to Kevin's.

Do you doubt me? Look at Troy's "accomplishments." If Mhoram hadn't saved his bacon at the edge of Garroting Deep, his decisions would have effectively destroyed the Lords' ability to defend the Land. He's just too damn innocent. He hasn't learned the self-doubt, the humility, that makes Covenant hesitate, or that makes Mhoram wise.

Does this help? I hope so.

[danlo]

Also remember that the Creator's "brother", Foul (before he was imprisioned), cast banes into his caldron of creation while he wasn't looking.

[I'm Murrin]

Wow. That's a pretty good answer. SRDs explanation for Hile Troy really makes sense.

[Holist]

I don't think you've read very many of the Covenant books.

[I'm Murrin]

Who are you referring to, Holist?

[drew]

I think he's talking about your

Spoiler

spoiler

cough**cough**IF**cough**cough

[Grimmand Honninscrave]

The Land evil??? To you rave???

[The Stoned Downer]

I believe that good and evil are both personified in the Land (as The Creator and Lord Foul) but are not corporeal. In other words Lord foul 'mind' or personality is trapped in the Land but is limited as to what he can do in the Land. Which is why he needs other people to destroy it. Therefore embedded in the Land itself is the capabilty for evil as well as good, but is neither.It is (to coin a phrase) what you make of it.

[Grimmand Honninscrave]

I disagree. Any evil was put there by Lord Foul.

[Tuvor]

The Ill Earthstone poses a bit of a problem to the logical integrity of the Covenant books. It means that The Land itself is partially evil and contains within itself the seeds of its own dissolution. And if it doesn't what exactly is the nature of its goodness? In Tolkien, Middle Earth was not the object of Saurons enmity. Human Beings were.

IMHO you are right in pointing out the presence of Evil in the Land itself. I am not sure though why you see there a problem of 'logical integrity'. Danlo pointed out in his post how the Illearth Stone (and other banes) made it into the Land, and Matrixman pointed out in his post the deep reasons why the existence of the banes, or equivalently the existence of evil, is actually _necessary_ for the logical coherence of the Chronicles. Or rather necessary for the elevation of the Chronicles to the highly non-trivial literature that they are.

What I can add to this is a comment on the work of JRR Tolkien. In fact, IMHO, SRD's approach to the problem of evil is very similar, if not identical, to the approach of Tolkien. In Tolkien's work, the presence of evil and corrput things in Middle Earth is a consequence of the intervention of Melkor, who rebelled against Eru Illuvatar. Likewise the work of the Creator of the Land marred by the cunning of Corruption. Also, if you look at the story of Middle Earth in the third age, I think that Tolkien makes it fairly clear that Sauron's assault is not only on the free peoples of Middle Earth but also on their environments. Should Sauron vanquish the forces of the free peoples, he would turn Minas Tirith into Barad-dur, and Lothlorien, Rivendell and the Shire into Mordor. SRD, IMHO presents a more wholistic, or if you will a more modern, variation of this story of the assault on the free peoples combined with an assault on their environment.

Added note: there is one *major* simplification in what I wrote above: In the Chronicles there is also Thomas Covenant, and like the Land he himself too contains evil and corruption. Tolkien's work, of course, contains no such character, though he certainly does have characters who are not so black and white, just like SRD has many characters in the Land who are not all black and white.

-T

[matrixman]

Well said, Tuvor. Er...I didn't point anything out, I merely quoted what SRD said.

[The Stoned Downer]

I disagree. Any evil was put there by Lord Foul.

I agree that the Land is inherently 'Good' but most certainly has the capacity for evil. I never meant that the Land was evil.

[amanibhavam]

Well, good and evil are very antropomorphic ideas. What is good and evil for us may be merely creation and destruction on creator-level, a necessary balance.
Is the Worm evil? It's sole activity is destruction, yet it is not evil IMHO, only a balancing entity.

This all poses another question: why does the Creator fight Foul at all? After all he wanted his world to have the capability to destroy itself.
I think he fights Foul because the latter spoils the game for him... IT's not the inhabitant of the Earth who decide whether they want to preserve or destroy their realm but Foul.

[Grimmand Honninscrave]

I suppose the earth power can be abused in the wrong hands. What I ment is that the evil banes were put there by foul. I don't know about the earth having the capacity for evil. I don't beleive it works that way. I don't think it goes one way or the other. I think it is up to whoever uses it. What his intent is. Good or Evil. vs

[fightingmyinstincts]

Wow, the innocence=impotence thing makes so incredibly much more sense now...Elena screwed up because it was basically her first chance to do something enormously useful in the war on Despite and she had never done anything that had had even remotely as bad consequences...she didn't know what could go wrong because not much ever had, and anything that had gone wrong in the past probably wasn't her fault anyway. Whoo...

When I first read the title to this thread I thought I had found a Gnostic...I was gonna have to get mah Gnostic bashing stick...

[firelion]

No