The Fall of the Land: Sad Musings
Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2005 8:04 am
Edelaith here. I wanted to make some commentary on how it seems to me that the Land and it's defenders fell, and they never recovered. It's sad. I'm an advocate of the Land (who could read Donaldsons' books, and not care about the Land?) and seeing it's defenders fail and never come back is sad. I suppose they never will now.
Because this article has spoilers from Runes of the Earth, I placed it in this forum.
The One Forest seemed to be the greatest sentient living thing in the Land. The evil under Mount Thunder evolved into sentience, Ravers were born, and they led mankind in an attack on the One Forest until it was mostly gone in the Lower Land, and some areas of the Forest in the Upper Land had been destroyed.
From that, I believe, came the Spoilt Plains. A ruined desert stretching from Lifeswallower to the Southron Climbs, and caused by Ravers. (Obviously, Lord Fouls' presence there continued the ruin. I'm simply commenting on why I think it would have been permanently ruined, Lord Foul or no Lord Foul.)
Then the Elohim sent their Appointed, and the Ravers were barred from the Upper Land.
That defense failed also. Mankind saw fit to destroy the One Forest almost entirely, wrecking the climate, murdering the sentience of the trees, and permanently diminishing the Land. After that, the Forestals guarded the last remnants of the Forest, but the Colossus failed and Ravers could once more tread the Upper Land.
After that, as the Lords told Covenant, the burden of defending the Land fell on mankind.
For a long while, mankind seemed semi-able to do this.
Berek founded the Lords and began the great learning of the Lore of Earthpower. Civilization rooted in principles of service and reverence for the Land took hold.
(Even so, the many battles fought in the South Plains at that time ruined them, leaving only an uninhabited steppe unable to regenerate the lost Forest or anything else.)
Bereks' successor, Damelon, expanded on the understanding of Earthpower, and befriended the Giants. Revelstone was built. An advanced civilization devoted to service and protection of the Land remained entrenched during all the long years of his Lordship.
Loric defeated the Viles, the incorporeal undead type beings that haunted the Land. The creations of the Viles, the Demondim, were even briefly friendly to the Lords and their people. Again, all through the long life of Loric, the great civilization based on the Lore of Earthpower and upon service and defense of the Land flourished. (The Ravers corrupted the Demondim during this time, though.)
This period was the one period in the Lands' history when it could be said the champions of the Land were truly supreme. With notable exceptions, there was general peace and prosperity, and the understanding of Earthpower reached extremely advanced levels.
Then Lord Foul took notice of the Land. Lorics' successor was Kevin, and he did not perceive the danger. The Lords did not perceive the danger.
Even in this shadowed age, though, more champions of the Land appeared. The Ramen succored the Raynhyn when Lord Foul was about to exterminate them. The Bloodguard took up the defense of Revelstone. The Waynhim were created by the Demondim (as were the Ur-Viles.) The Forests remained vigilant under their Forestals, killing anyone who entered.
Then the darkness came.
The long wars between Kevin and Lord Foul left a ruined desert on the Upper Land from the Roamsedge Ford to Mount Thunder, and from the border of Andelain to Landsdrop.
Then the war carried westward, laying Trothgard to waste permanently.
It is reasonable to assume colossal and irreparable damage was done in many other places, as the war went on for hundreds of years.
It ended in the Ritual of Desecration. The Lords were all killed. All the people of Revelstone perished. Vast numbers of the people of the Land perished. Those who survived were those who fled before the Desecration hit, warned by Kevin, or through their own forewarnings. Even the Demondim were killed.
The Lords stated to Covenant that prior to the Ritual of Desecration, most of the Upper Land was beautiful and Earthpowerful like Andelain. Taking the war ravaged areas out of consideration, that means the North and Center Plains, the Plains of Ra, the Last Hills ... most of the Upper Land was a pastoral paradise. (Even remnants of the Lower Land were yet Andelainian, it seems.)
The Land never recovered from the Ritual. Only the heart of the Upper Land, Andelain, truly recovered. The regions around it recovered enough to support grass and copses of trees, but never again the Andelainian beauty that had once been. No part of the Lower Land ever recovered fully.
The Forests suffered from the Ritual, but somehow survived, and hated mankind more than ever thereafter.
Thanks to the work of Lord Foul, the Ravers, the ignorance and stupidity of mankind, and the despair of Kevin, the Upper Land - once an Andelainian paradise, was now a desert. A thousand years later, only the heart of the Land would recover, and the rest of the Land would be reduced to prairie and semi-prairie.
The areas ruined by the wars prior to the Desecration, such as Trothgard, the battlegrounds east of Andelain, the South Plains west of the Mithil River, and the Spoilt Plains, would remain ruined.
The Lore of Earthpower was lost. Kevin secreted it away, hoping it would be rediscovered. Until then, the people of the Land were bereft their rightful heritage, the heritage of Lore to defend and preserve the Land.
And the Land itself was thus defenseless, lacking either Forest or Forestal (except in Garrotting Deep) or Lore-wise human defenders to protect it (except for the Waynhim, never great in numbers.)
That was the Desolation and it's aftermath, occurring roughly 8,000 years before the time of the Runes of the Earth.
And since that time, despite all efforts, nobody has been able to regenerate or recreate what was lost.
The New Lords were unable to progress past the Second Ward of Kevins' Lore. They could not restore Trothgard, or the Battlegrounds, or the South Plains, much less the Spoilt Plains or the Sarangrave. They could not use their lore to regenerate the One Forest - the Center, North, and South Plains remained just that, plains.
The New Lords could not stop Lord Foul, and were reduced to hoping Covenant could (which he eventually did.) What the New Lords COULD do was break the Law of Death, undermining Reality itself and unleashing terrible harm upon the whole Earth. In that disaster Covenant, the Ranyhyn, and others played their part. And that disaster led to the destruction of the Staff of Law, further undermining Reality.
After Covenant defeated Lord Foul, the New Lords turned away from Kevins' Lore, seeing that this lore had the power to be corrupted. But in so doing, they started themselves down the long road to utter ruin (as indicated by the author.)
The New Lords succeeded in a lot of 'false healing.' They supposedly healed Trothgard and the Battlelands. The Forests begin slowly spreading, or at least flourishing (duping Wildwood into thinking his work done, and passing on.) The loss of the Staff of Law, and the rupture of Reality that resulted, allowed this false healing, created without the real effort and knowledge needed for such work, misleading the New Lords further and further away from true understanding.
And even in this ruptured reality, the New Lords could not restore the lost One Forest. They could not make the North, Center, and South Plains regenerate. Even given 2000 years of trying, they could not do so. Instead, they drifted deeper and deeper into folly and blindness.
Then the New Lords and the people of the Land lost their health sight, through this long descent into folly. That opened the way for a Raver to take over the Council of Lords. And that was the end of the New Lords. The Clave slowly turned into a servant of Lord Foul, and the people of the Land lost all the lore they still had, to be replaced with a culture of murder.
With nobody to defend it, the Lands' Earthpower was corrupted by Lord Foul, until the Earthpower was overthrown and left rotting, and the Sunbane came upon the Land.
The Sunbane destroyed the last of the One Forest, and left the rest of the Upper Land in the state of a toxic waste dump. Only Andelain survived, thanks to it's own strength and the care of Caer Caveral.
Out of all of the old Land, Upper and Lower, only the regions of Giant Woods and Seareach remotely resembled the beautiful Land of old.
Linden Avery healed the rot of the Earthpower, and Covenant again defeated Lord Foul.
But Linden Avery did not have the strength to restore the One Forest. She did not have the strength to even restore the praires that had once been. She was reduced to hoping Sunder and Hollian would do so, working from the core of Andelain.
Hundreds of years after the cessation of the Sunbane, the wracked body of the Land still remembered it, echoing in Wrongness from the soil. The poison was gone from the blood, but the person was not well yet.
Caer Caveral was gone, and his death broke the Law of Life, eroding Reality much further. The Reality of Existence was now badly shattered, and the Caesures could affect things in the Land; thus the loss of the new Staff of Law was enabled.
Sunder, Hollian, and Anele - had they had the help and disaster had not befallen - could have seen a renewal of the Lore of Earthpower in the Land. A renaissance could have occurred. Revelstone could have been reoccupied. The Loresraat could have been rebuilt. Lords could have returned. Perhaps the age of the Old Lords could have returned to the Land, a time of beauty and peace, power and grandeur, in which lore-wise defenders of the Land kept a steady vigil against Despite, Ravers, and other evils.
The Caesure that took Anele saw to it that this would not happen.
The Haruchai then made SURE it would not happen. Decrying the use of Earthpower as evil, they humbly (snorts) took it upon themselves to govern the Land.
The Haruchai suppressed all knowledge of Earthpower, much less it's study. Then they suppressed all knowledge of history, so that nobody could learn from that history. They suppressed travel, wrecking the last way the people of the Land could have reemerged from the dark age of the Sunbane. And they discouraged the Giants from coming to the Upper Land, sealing the Land in isolation.
Thus, for 3000 years more the Land has sat in it's dark age.
There is no lore or light in Revelstone. There is no Loresraat devoted to Earthpower, whether Kevins' Lore or any other Lore. There is no veneration of Earthpower - there is no discernment of Earthpower, period! (even before Kevins' dirt put an extra nail in the coffin, there was no discernment of Earthpower.) There is no understanding or knowledge of the Lands' enemies.
There are no Forests (or, if there are, we don't know about them) except perhaps Giant Woods. There are no Forestals (or, if there are, we don't know about them.) There is no Colossus. There are no Ramen (they have sworn never to return to the Land while an enemy threatens it!) There are no Ranyhyn.
There is nothing left of the beauty and splendor of Berek, Damelon, Loric, and Kevin, and their Councils. There is nothing left of the wisdom and fidelity of the people of the Land to it's defense and nurturing. It's all just gone. Just gone.
It would be nice if Linden Avery and her increasing group of allies could change this. It would be nice if they could bring back the age of the Old Lords.
However, I'm not betting on this happening.
And, I find it sad. Sad, that the Land and it's defenders fell, and the great days of old could not be returned. Sad, that the One Forest could not be returned. Sad, that all the effort and blood and tears could not bring healing, could not undo the work of Despite and Ravers and ignorance.
Just my musing.
Because this article has spoilers from Runes of the Earth, I placed it in this forum.
The One Forest seemed to be the greatest sentient living thing in the Land. The evil under Mount Thunder evolved into sentience, Ravers were born, and they led mankind in an attack on the One Forest until it was mostly gone in the Lower Land, and some areas of the Forest in the Upper Land had been destroyed.
From that, I believe, came the Spoilt Plains. A ruined desert stretching from Lifeswallower to the Southron Climbs, and caused by Ravers. (Obviously, Lord Fouls' presence there continued the ruin. I'm simply commenting on why I think it would have been permanently ruined, Lord Foul or no Lord Foul.)
Then the Elohim sent their Appointed, and the Ravers were barred from the Upper Land.
That defense failed also. Mankind saw fit to destroy the One Forest almost entirely, wrecking the climate, murdering the sentience of the trees, and permanently diminishing the Land. After that, the Forestals guarded the last remnants of the Forest, but the Colossus failed and Ravers could once more tread the Upper Land.
After that, as the Lords told Covenant, the burden of defending the Land fell on mankind.
For a long while, mankind seemed semi-able to do this.
Berek founded the Lords and began the great learning of the Lore of Earthpower. Civilization rooted in principles of service and reverence for the Land took hold.
(Even so, the many battles fought in the South Plains at that time ruined them, leaving only an uninhabited steppe unable to regenerate the lost Forest or anything else.)
Bereks' successor, Damelon, expanded on the understanding of Earthpower, and befriended the Giants. Revelstone was built. An advanced civilization devoted to service and protection of the Land remained entrenched during all the long years of his Lordship.
Loric defeated the Viles, the incorporeal undead type beings that haunted the Land. The creations of the Viles, the Demondim, were even briefly friendly to the Lords and their people. Again, all through the long life of Loric, the great civilization based on the Lore of Earthpower and upon service and defense of the Land flourished. (The Ravers corrupted the Demondim during this time, though.)
This period was the one period in the Lands' history when it could be said the champions of the Land were truly supreme. With notable exceptions, there was general peace and prosperity, and the understanding of Earthpower reached extremely advanced levels.
Then Lord Foul took notice of the Land. Lorics' successor was Kevin, and he did not perceive the danger. The Lords did not perceive the danger.
Even in this shadowed age, though, more champions of the Land appeared. The Ramen succored the Raynhyn when Lord Foul was about to exterminate them. The Bloodguard took up the defense of Revelstone. The Waynhim were created by the Demondim (as were the Ur-Viles.) The Forests remained vigilant under their Forestals, killing anyone who entered.
Then the darkness came.
The long wars between Kevin and Lord Foul left a ruined desert on the Upper Land from the Roamsedge Ford to Mount Thunder, and from the border of Andelain to Landsdrop.
Then the war carried westward, laying Trothgard to waste permanently.
It is reasonable to assume colossal and irreparable damage was done in many other places, as the war went on for hundreds of years.
It ended in the Ritual of Desecration. The Lords were all killed. All the people of Revelstone perished. Vast numbers of the people of the Land perished. Those who survived were those who fled before the Desecration hit, warned by Kevin, or through their own forewarnings. Even the Demondim were killed.
The Lords stated to Covenant that prior to the Ritual of Desecration, most of the Upper Land was beautiful and Earthpowerful like Andelain. Taking the war ravaged areas out of consideration, that means the North and Center Plains, the Plains of Ra, the Last Hills ... most of the Upper Land was a pastoral paradise. (Even remnants of the Lower Land were yet Andelainian, it seems.)
The Land never recovered from the Ritual. Only the heart of the Upper Land, Andelain, truly recovered. The regions around it recovered enough to support grass and copses of trees, but never again the Andelainian beauty that had once been. No part of the Lower Land ever recovered fully.
The Forests suffered from the Ritual, but somehow survived, and hated mankind more than ever thereafter.
Thanks to the work of Lord Foul, the Ravers, the ignorance and stupidity of mankind, and the despair of Kevin, the Upper Land - once an Andelainian paradise, was now a desert. A thousand years later, only the heart of the Land would recover, and the rest of the Land would be reduced to prairie and semi-prairie.
The areas ruined by the wars prior to the Desecration, such as Trothgard, the battlegrounds east of Andelain, the South Plains west of the Mithil River, and the Spoilt Plains, would remain ruined.
The Lore of Earthpower was lost. Kevin secreted it away, hoping it would be rediscovered. Until then, the people of the Land were bereft their rightful heritage, the heritage of Lore to defend and preserve the Land.
And the Land itself was thus defenseless, lacking either Forest or Forestal (except in Garrotting Deep) or Lore-wise human defenders to protect it (except for the Waynhim, never great in numbers.)
That was the Desolation and it's aftermath, occurring roughly 8,000 years before the time of the Runes of the Earth.
And since that time, despite all efforts, nobody has been able to regenerate or recreate what was lost.
The New Lords were unable to progress past the Second Ward of Kevins' Lore. They could not restore Trothgard, or the Battlegrounds, or the South Plains, much less the Spoilt Plains or the Sarangrave. They could not use their lore to regenerate the One Forest - the Center, North, and South Plains remained just that, plains.
The New Lords could not stop Lord Foul, and were reduced to hoping Covenant could (which he eventually did.) What the New Lords COULD do was break the Law of Death, undermining Reality itself and unleashing terrible harm upon the whole Earth. In that disaster Covenant, the Ranyhyn, and others played their part. And that disaster led to the destruction of the Staff of Law, further undermining Reality.
After Covenant defeated Lord Foul, the New Lords turned away from Kevins' Lore, seeing that this lore had the power to be corrupted. But in so doing, they started themselves down the long road to utter ruin (as indicated by the author.)
The New Lords succeeded in a lot of 'false healing.' They supposedly healed Trothgard and the Battlelands. The Forests begin slowly spreading, or at least flourishing (duping Wildwood into thinking his work done, and passing on.) The loss of the Staff of Law, and the rupture of Reality that resulted, allowed this false healing, created without the real effort and knowledge needed for such work, misleading the New Lords further and further away from true understanding.
And even in this ruptured reality, the New Lords could not restore the lost One Forest. They could not make the North, Center, and South Plains regenerate. Even given 2000 years of trying, they could not do so. Instead, they drifted deeper and deeper into folly and blindness.
Then the New Lords and the people of the Land lost their health sight, through this long descent into folly. That opened the way for a Raver to take over the Council of Lords. And that was the end of the New Lords. The Clave slowly turned into a servant of Lord Foul, and the people of the Land lost all the lore they still had, to be replaced with a culture of murder.
With nobody to defend it, the Lands' Earthpower was corrupted by Lord Foul, until the Earthpower was overthrown and left rotting, and the Sunbane came upon the Land.
The Sunbane destroyed the last of the One Forest, and left the rest of the Upper Land in the state of a toxic waste dump. Only Andelain survived, thanks to it's own strength and the care of Caer Caveral.
Out of all of the old Land, Upper and Lower, only the regions of Giant Woods and Seareach remotely resembled the beautiful Land of old.
Linden Avery healed the rot of the Earthpower, and Covenant again defeated Lord Foul.
But Linden Avery did not have the strength to restore the One Forest. She did not have the strength to even restore the praires that had once been. She was reduced to hoping Sunder and Hollian would do so, working from the core of Andelain.
Hundreds of years after the cessation of the Sunbane, the wracked body of the Land still remembered it, echoing in Wrongness from the soil. The poison was gone from the blood, but the person was not well yet.
Caer Caveral was gone, and his death broke the Law of Life, eroding Reality much further. The Reality of Existence was now badly shattered, and the Caesures could affect things in the Land; thus the loss of the new Staff of Law was enabled.
Sunder, Hollian, and Anele - had they had the help and disaster had not befallen - could have seen a renewal of the Lore of Earthpower in the Land. A renaissance could have occurred. Revelstone could have been reoccupied. The Loresraat could have been rebuilt. Lords could have returned. Perhaps the age of the Old Lords could have returned to the Land, a time of beauty and peace, power and grandeur, in which lore-wise defenders of the Land kept a steady vigil against Despite, Ravers, and other evils.
The Caesure that took Anele saw to it that this would not happen.
The Haruchai then made SURE it would not happen. Decrying the use of Earthpower as evil, they humbly (snorts) took it upon themselves to govern the Land.
The Haruchai suppressed all knowledge of Earthpower, much less it's study. Then they suppressed all knowledge of history, so that nobody could learn from that history. They suppressed travel, wrecking the last way the people of the Land could have reemerged from the dark age of the Sunbane. And they discouraged the Giants from coming to the Upper Land, sealing the Land in isolation.
Thus, for 3000 years more the Land has sat in it's dark age.
There is no lore or light in Revelstone. There is no Loresraat devoted to Earthpower, whether Kevins' Lore or any other Lore. There is no veneration of Earthpower - there is no discernment of Earthpower, period! (even before Kevins' dirt put an extra nail in the coffin, there was no discernment of Earthpower.) There is no understanding or knowledge of the Lands' enemies.
There are no Forests (or, if there are, we don't know about them) except perhaps Giant Woods. There are no Forestals (or, if there are, we don't know about them.) There is no Colossus. There are no Ramen (they have sworn never to return to the Land while an enemy threatens it!) There are no Ranyhyn.
There is nothing left of the beauty and splendor of Berek, Damelon, Loric, and Kevin, and their Councils. There is nothing left of the wisdom and fidelity of the people of the Land to it's defense and nurturing. It's all just gone. Just gone.
It would be nice if Linden Avery and her increasing group of allies could change this. It would be nice if they could bring back the age of the Old Lords.
However, I'm not betting on this happening.
And, I find it sad. Sad, that the Land and it's defenders fell, and the great days of old could not be returned. Sad, that the One Forest could not be returned. Sad, that all the effort and blood and tears could not bring healing, could not undo the work of Despite and Ravers and ignorance.
Just my musing.
Edelaith
