Brathairealm

[drew]

Okay, it was a cool part of the One Tree. We got the Meet Nom!! The Haruchai began to doubt Linden.

But why Brathairealm; why the sub-plot of the Kemper running the town, while the Ghadi was a puppet?
Was it just a neat story to fill up the pages?
Not from Donaldson. If he just wanted to tell that story, it would have been as a short story in one of his collections---with different chactors obviously.

There must have been some Foreshadowing in it, or some lesson that one of the Charactors (TC or LA) could only learn from that situation...I just haven't come up with it...

Any ideas...?

[Warmark]

It showed us Linden more...like when she attacked Ceer.
Was that not something to do with her parents?
She didnt want him to die like her mother, slowly etc.

[drew]

I thought he reminded her more of her father, since she said "You never Loved me anyway"

[Warmark]

yea thats it, couldnt remember.
Suppose it could be foreshadowing,

Sandgorgons are bound to appear,
perhaps brathairealm are now trading/visiting the Land.
we'll find out in 2007 i suppose.

[High Lord Tolkien]

I thought it once again had to do with the impotence of power.
This was TC at his best with the WM, imho.
He was in control, focused and kicking #ss!
BUT he still couldn't defeat the Kemper.
Just like the Raver at Revelstone he had to step aside and let another achieve victory.
There's that "acceptance" concept again.

[dlbpharmd]

That part of the story also introduced the croyel, a race that may yet re-appear.

[drew]

I'm glad we met the Croyels, and the Sandgorgans, and stuff like that.
What I was wondering about though, was the Kemper/Ghadi story.

I like HLT's theroy, that TC couldn't do it by himslef...he had to accept help from someone else.

All thought the 2nd chrons, there's stories about sacrifice for the greater good...the story about the Firsts father, the story about Kastenessen, Brin's victory.

Perhaps the story shows us that those who are in charge, can be powerless...as the case with the Ghadi.
The same way the na-Mhoram thought they were in charge, but it was really Foul..so in order to help the Land, just like to save themselves from the Brathair, you have to stop who's really in charge.
This shows up later, when quenching the Banefire didn't do anything to the Sunbane...?

Maybe I'm stretching it too far.

[wayfriend]

But why Brathairealm; why the sub-plot of the Kemper running the town, while the Ghadi was a puppet?

Here's my take: TC is under a spell cast by the powerful Elohim. So the Quest needs run across somebody who could conceivably tackle that problem - someone powerful. The plot needs TC and Linden to be in danger from this person - someone bad. It would have to be someone they could stumble across while out at sea; they cannot go back to the Land - someone foreign. And we would like to encounter a Sandgorgon - someone from a desert clime.

So the working premise is we need a bad, powerful person in a foreign, desert place.

The rest falls out from there. You have to fill it in, add color, subplots, suspense, etc. to have a great story.

[balon!]

Perhaps SRD not only wanted to center the story around the Land, but use other outlets of the whole planet. Like the Giants of home or the Elohim. Mabye Braithairrealm was a side plot to show the other parts of the world, not just the land.

[caamora]

I like the idea that we see more of Linden. We see her transformation from Linden Avery, the doctor to Linden Avery, the Chosen. She is, after all, the Sun Sage and Donaldson needed to really bring her into the story-not just as a second to Covenant. Linden needed her own adventure so that we as readers could better accept her as the Sun Sage just like TC did in the 1st chrons.

[Prover of Life]

When Foamfollower first meets TC, he mentions that the Giants made contact with Brithairrealm and fought against the Sandgorgons. Perhaps the knowledge of powerful arts could be useful for the quest. I feel the necessity to engage with many of the earth's peoples for TC will save or damn the earth, not just the Land.

[Billy G.]

So was that before the construction of the Sandgorgon's Doom? It was a nice tie-in between the first series and second.

Could anyone see Christopher Walken portraying Kasreyn?

[wayfriend]

Could anyone see Christopher Walken portraying Kasreyn?

Nope. I cannot get Max Von Sydow out of my head.

[bossk]

I definitely think Braitherealm was inserted for more than just an excuse to bring in Nom. SRD had to keep Covenant in contact with other forms of power at regular intervals throughout the 2Chron so that we (and the characters) could learn more about how TC reacts to power and so he can figure out what DOESN'T work on his way to discovering what DOES work. This plays into the acceptance theory posited above in my opinion.

[Caer Bombadil]

I definitely think Braitherealm was inserted for more than just an excuse to bring in Nom. SRD had to keep Covenant in contact with other forms of power at regular intervals throughout the 2Chron so that we (and the characters) could learn more about how TC reacts to power and so he can figure out what DOESN'T work on his way to discovering what DOES work. This plays into the acceptance theory posited above in my opinion.

I like that interpretation. Moreover, I think the Brathairain episode served to hint at a whole world of nations and powers and phenomena not known to the people of the Land.

I always thought Brathairain was just plain cool. I picture a cross b/t Middle-Earth's Umbar, and the kingdom we imagined ruling from our sand castle on the beach (& the Sandgorgons as the bullies that kick them down!). In a way, the Brathair seem the most like folks like us of anyone we met in this (alternate) Earth so far. They have a culture and technology and politics and an economy and plots and schemes familiar and accessible to us. Perhaps (one might speculate fanficishly) if the old civilization of Doriendor Korishev had not produced Berek and discovered Earthpower or been afflicted by the Ravers, it might have evolved to something like a larger version of Brathairealm.

Of course, the Brathairain of TOT existed in the shadow of Kasreyn, whom IMO was a human who engaged in corrupt traffic with powers that may ultimately derive from Despite, though not explicitly controlled by or in league with Lord Foul.

Furthermore, there seems to be a wide Earth little known to even the Giants, much less the landlocked homebodies of the Land, that trades with Brathairain. Kasreyn came from some unnamed country outside. Others such as Lady Alif (a blonde among a swarthy people? Or did she get it from a bottle? Does she or doesn't she?) may also have been imports. With whom exactly does Brathairain trade, given the rarity of port calls by Giants?

I for one look forward to a return visit to Brathairain in the Last Chrons, perhaps now ruled by a ghaddi of the dynasty descended from Rire Grist and Alif.

[Cail]

This could just be me...TOT is a very different book than everything that comes before or after. When I first read it, it seemed like an indulgence. SRD wanted to stretch out and explore the world outside the Land. I use the Worm as an example...Never mentioned before, and hardly mentioned afterwards.

I've learned to appreciate TOT a lot more in the last 20-some years, but it still seems like indulgence to me. That being said, I think the whole Brathairealm sequence kicks serious butt, and is some of SRD's best writing in the Second Chrons.

[Landwaster]

Mmmm ... Alif ... hrggarghlrggh ...

What's the betting someone got Lady Alif in 'trouble' when the readers weren't watching. Voila, whole new race.

[KAY1]

I think that this was an essential part of the story as it made other parts possible. In the search for the One Tree if they had just sailed around aimlessly it would've been kind of boring. Also it wasn't just a way of introducing Nom it was introducing the Croyel which appeared again when the Quest arrived back in the land and fought with the Arguleh. I think that everything SRD writes about has some significance, even if it doesn't become immediately apparent. We first heard about the Brathair from Foamfollower in the first Chron and if nothing had ever been heard of them again then that really would have meant they were just a way of filling a few pages. Every event and action within the Land and the rest of the Earth has a consequence somewhere along the line.

[Caer Bombadil]

Mmmm ... Alif ... hrggarghlrggh ...

What's the betting someone got Lady Alif in 'trouble' when the readers weren't watching. Voila, whole new race.

My money's on Rire Grist, the dashing virile honorable captain of the ghaddi's Horse.

IMO the parting words of the First with Rire Grist, & concerning Lady Alif, respectively, pretty broadly adumbrated that Grist would prevail in the chaos of Kasreyn's fall, and ascend to (ruling, non-figurehead) ghaddi of the post-Kasreyn Brathairealm, and that the brave Lady Alif would almost certainly become his consort.