Kevin's Watch

I know a lot of people seem to rate the 2nd Chronicles and The Wounded Land in particular, but what about the Illearth War?

I thought that had to be at least one fo the best books in the series.

Where LFB began telling us of the righ history of the Land and the Lords, TIW picks it up and expands it. We learn more of the Vloodguard and their complex ideals. We see more of the Lords in action and travel the length of the Land, learning more about it and its people and hidden powers. We also get to know more intimately Covenant's struggle to come to terms with the Land and the crimes he has committed. Surely this has to be the keystone book of the series?

A very popular book around here, and definitely some people's favourites.

Mine too, along with The Wounded Land. Some excellent threads covering it too, if you look around for them.

--Avatar

TIW is the best book in the series, IMO.

The Illearth War is my favourite book in the series. So many great moments.

TIW is definitely the best of 1st Chronicles.

Now, see, TIW is my least favorite book in the first two Chronicles.

It was the march of the Warward which I found to be distasteful. I understand it's purpose and it's emotional weight. But it's the kind of hardship and pain that I find no entertainment value in sharing. It's just to hard to read about.

Definitely my favourite of all seven books.

The Illearth War is my favourite novel in the First Chronicles. It's the second best in the whole series after The Wounded Land.

My favorite book was WGW. I liked TIW, but didn't like part two (The Warward).

You got my vote for The Illearth War.
(followed by TPTP, and then LFB, imo)

I don't think I have a favorite book.
I have many favorite *parts* in each book.

The One Tree might be my least favorite *book* but it has some of my favorite parts.
Nom and anytime TC interacted with the Haruchai ["Can you hear me?" and commanding Brinn to guard the staircase] for example, are awesome.

Revenant wrote:You got my vote for The Illearth War.
(followed by TPTP, and then LFB, imo)

I agree completely!

Revenant wrote:You got my vote for The Illearth War.
(followed by TPTP, and then LFB, imo)

Same here.

Yes, folks, but tell us WHY you loved The Illearth War. How did it capture your imagination? I agree that it remains, in its way, the greatest of the Covenant books, so I'm not afraid to spout excessive verbiage about it.

The first time that I read TCTC, The Illearth War had the biggest emotional impact of the three books. Its cataclysmic end had left me in a daze. No other TC book began with so much promise for victory, and no other TC book ended with so much hope shattered. Lord Foul's Bane got me hooked on SRD's world; with TIW SRD secured my loyalty forever.

As noted by Jemcheeta in another thread, TIW was a story that began on a positive note--at least for the Land's citizens, if not Covenant himself. TIW really was like a movie with a cast of thousands. In no other book (so far) did the Land seem so potent with the possibilities of Earthpower, and so alive with defenders: the Council of Lords expanded and in possession of the Staff of Law; both the Warward and the Loresraat expanded hugely; Revelwood created; Loric's krill awakened, and consequently Amok awakened--both heralds of the Old Lords' power.

With all these forces allied against Lord Foul, TIW at first seemed to promise a very heroic tale. Then with every passing chapter, TIW spiralled downward into an emotional abyss--and a literal abyss in the depths of Melenkurion Skyweir.

But before that the Forestal of Garrotting Deep came in and stole the show. Caerroil Wildwood inspired awe the moment the reader came across him. He saved the collective ass of the Warward, slew Fleshharrower, completely annihilated the Giant-Raver's army, and destroyed a piece of the Illearth Stone like it was nothing to him. Wildwood represented a level of Earthpower deeper and more ancient than anything seen before in the Land (except maybe the Fire-Lions).

Back on the human scale of things, the heart of TIW was the entangled relationship around Covenant, Elena, Trell and Troy. If this wasn't an epic fantasy, it would be a soap opera, what with these quirky, deranged, or damaged personalities running around.

I also thought the parallel storylines of Troy/Mhoram/Warward and Covenant/Elena/Amok and the way they converged in the end was very well done by SRD.

If I could sum up TIW in one word, that word would be Betrayal. Yes, there is always betrayal of one kind or another happening throughout the Chronicles, but TIW by itself seems like a litany of betrayals. Examples:

-Covenant betrayed by his private bargain with an unwitting Elena
-Elena betrayed by her blind hatred of Foul
-Hile Troy betrayed by his blind faith--in Elena and his own war plan
-Kevin careful design for his Wards betrayed by Morin's revelation of the "password" to the Seventh Ward; Kevin himself betrayed by Elena's blind faith in his ability to fight Foul.

And so on. I might even go so far as to say that Elena or the Land itself--or the mad dream in his mind--betrayed Covenant, in that his summoning, just as Joan was on the phone, deprived him of a chance to reconcile with her. Their unresolved estrangement would come back to bite them in TWL, of course. (Okay, so Joan was doing the biting.)

So, nothing really deep, folks. Just explaining why I find TIW so compelling.

Great post MM.

--A

Yea, what he said...

But seriously, I thought I had written my praises for TIW elsewhere, so felt I would be redundent... but in fact, I had only written about favorite TIW scenes elsewhere some time ago: Troy's realization of Foul's immense army; Elena's dilemma with the Seventh Ward, Elena's and TC's relationship... I see I could have been more detailed here, although not as well as MM, who did a fabulous post — oh, yes you did, don't you be humble!

So I'll only add this late comment: after reading that book for the first time a long time ago, what I felt was essentially within the epigraph:
"That beauty and truth should pass utterly..." (*)

There was such a despair in the end that was so well captured in that simple quote, and going back to read Lord Kevin's Lament ( ch.8 ) brought back tears.

"Did You intend that beauty and truth should pass utterly from the Earth?
Have You shaped my fate into the Law of life?
Am I effectless?"

[* I think each book's epigraph, "Something there is in beauty...", "That beauty and truth should pass utterly...", "Be true, Unbeliever", were quite well chosen, not giving much away at first, but then taking so much meaning in retrospect. Especially in TIW and TPTP: after first read, I would look back at it, and nod in renewed comprehension.]

LFB was just a bit of groundwork as far as I am concerned (although of course it was good). The Illearth War is the one which really made me fall in love with the Land. It is also what made me first start to feel some sympathy for TC. He was really tormented in this book from the moment of his summoning. The development of some of the other characters is amazing as well. Lord Mhoram really comes into his own and I found myself being really angry that he wasn't the High Lord, which may have added to my dislike of Elena.

Like her though, the story of High Lord Kevin fascinated me. In TIW we get a bigger glimpse into what drove him to thr Ritual of Desecration and even get to meet the man himself!

Matrixman wrote:With all these forces allied against Lord Foul, TIW at first seemed to promise a very heroic tale. Then with every passing chapter, TIW spiralled downward into an emotional abyss--and a literal abyss in the depths of Melenkurion Skyweir.

...

I also thought the parallel storylines of Troy/Mhoram/Warward and Covenant/Elena/Amok and the way they converged in the end was very well done by SRD.

Well said. I don't have much to add to that. The Illearth War was the most immense, emotional, affecting book I had ever read. And the levels of hope and despair were almost paralysing. The only book that surpassed TIW for alternating hope/despair was TPTP.

Thanks for the kind words, everyone.

Yes, TPTP was very intense and powerful in its own way. In my mind, it's the bleakest Covenant book. With TIW there was still the feeling of hope and beauty in the Land, but by the time of TPTP it seemed like there was only death and darkness in the Land. Which of course made Mhoram's and Covenant's respective victories that much more cathartic and uplifting. But I still find TPTP to be the hardest Chronicles book to read. The amount of pain and anguish that SRD puts the characters through in TPTP is almost unbearable to me. (Even more so than the amount of suffering that people go through in the 2nd Chrons.)

KAY1 wrote:Lord Mhoram really comes into his own and I found myself being really angry that he wasn't the High Lord, which may have added to my dislike of Elena.

Yes, I was a bit surprised too that Mhoram wasn't High Lord by the time of TIW. It seemed natural that he would have been the successor to Prothall.

KAY1 wrote:Lord Mhoram really comes into his own and I found myself being really angry that he wasn't the High Lord, which may have added to my dislike of Elena.

Yes, I was a bit surprised too that Mhoram wasn't High Lord by the time of TIW. It seemed natural that he would have been the successor to Prothall.[/quote]

if Mhoram was High Lord then there would have been a very different outcome - I can't see Mhoram summoning Kevin to fight Foul!