Kevin's Watch

Having read Nerdanel's post about how she would have acted differently to Covenant if she had found herself in the Land, it led me think of other examples where maybe I would have acted differently.

For example, take Kevin's Watch. This is a sliver of stone reaching 3000ft into the air, which has a rude stairway, described more like a ladder cut into the side. I don't know about anyone else but I have walked up a 3000ft mountain and down again and it is not that easy! Covenant had vertigo and admittedly had some trouble with the Watch, but if I had to climb down that stairway there is no way I could've made it!

I originally envisaged Kevin's Watch quite inaccurately, as a vertical pillar with the stairs winding round it, making it tapered. I imagined there would be a sheer drop right next to the staircase, so as a fellow vertigo sufferer I definitely wouldn't be able to climb down that!

Now I know more precisely SRD's vision of Kevin's Watch I suspect I'd have less of a problem with it. For me vertigo is a problem with perspective rather than height itself. If I can see for a long way and something moves in the foreground then my head will spin until I touch something in my field of view (this can even happen at ground level). I'd be okay to climb down the steps of KW backwards like TC did, but it would be damn tiring and I'd need quite a few breaks.

I wouldn't as I have a fear of heights.

I don't think that the stairs on Kevin's Watch go down the whole 3000 feet. I believe that where the Watch joins the mountain is still pretty high up.

Nav wrote:I originally envisaged Kevin's Watch quite inaccurately, as a vertical pillar with the stairs winding round it,

So did I.

I'd have a go certainly, im not afraid of heights.

I'm not afraid of heights, so I would try.

But on the other hand, even if I was afraid of heights, I would try anyway. It really wouldn't be nice to starve to death, even if the view was magnificent.

What's scary about Kevin's Watch is the slipping part, particularly if you aren't in a good shape and have leprosy. However, I think the Watch cannot be as bad as it might sound from the text, or otherwise someone would have slipped from it in the books and died.

well, if you popped into the Land on the top of Kevin's Watch....how much CHOICE would you have??? egad. i would have but i wouldn't have been happy about it. and i'm sort of clutzy as well...the chances of a misstep are GREAT. i probably would have gotten down the QUICK way!!

What a wonderfully interesting topic. From the sheer weight of topics here at the watch, it's hard to come up with new material. Well done.

Nerdanel wrote:I'm not afraid of heights, so I would try.

But on the other hand, even if I was afraid of heights, I would try anyway. It really wouldn't be nice to starve to death, even if the view was magnificent.

What's scary about Kevin's Watch is the slipping part, particularly if you aren't in a good shape and have leprosy. However, I think the Watch cannot be as bad as it might sound from the text, or otherwise someone would have slipped from it in the books and died.

Nerdanel, I think you said many things & said them well.

May I theorize of the possibility that the Stone Downers of power, such as Trell, would be able to easily catch a daughter who shouldn't be up on the watch alone, or cause the stair to catch her should she be in front of him. I guess I'm saying that the stairway in my mind was the kind that kills. You don't run down these stairs, ever. THat's my take.

I seem to recall that the stairs are only 500 feet or so to the slope of the mountain...still a very long distance. Having been a rock climber in my youth, I would have undertaken the trek with ease...as I have gotten older though, I am not so sure.

My impression of the stairs is that they are some 3 body widths or so across, so unless one were very careless going over the side would not be an issue. It is the downward momentum and the steepness that would make it tricky. If it were otherwise, and the stairs were a mere body width across, only the very bravest would even attempt to ascend the stairs without rope, gear to secure it, and the experience to use it.

It has been so long since I read it, but don't Covenant and Linden make the descent under the Sun of Rain in TWL? Now that would be a task!

They did indeed, and yes, it was a task. I just looked it up; the rainclouds began about 200 feet below the Watch, and before they got to the bottom of the stairs they were in the full force of the storm.

Are there any stairs anywhere comparable in the world??? Perhaps an Aztec pyramid's middle path????


These felt more like the stairs from Lord of the Rings, when Gollum leads them into Mordor through the back way. This is not a stairway I would even want to attempt in my naturally aggressive state let alone handling this on medication or any other sort of way. I really don't think I could handle it. I would turn away. Call me coward, but I wouldn't do it. I truly wouldn't climb that stairway. It was too scary. I could not do it.

I could better handle 300,000 orcs or viles or whatever might be piling out through the Hilter machine. But I couldn't handle a mother crying out for her missing little girl through the night, over and over again. I'd almost wish they'd shoot her it was too sad to hear. But finally, her baby comes to her late, late in the night. She is okay. The rest of the night's sleep is happy & full of wonderful dreams and they come out fighting & laughing. But I couldn't deal with that stairway without so much respect that I might notice names on the stairs like Hollowood Stars....

Lucimay wrote:well, if you popped into the Land on the top of Kevin's Watch....how much CHOICE would you have??? egad. i would have but i wouldn't have been happy about it.

Sums it up for me too. I don't like heights; maybe I also would have barfed at some point during the descent, but you just have to grit your teeth and get it done. Being alive is generally preferable to being dead, and that sentiment would make me suffer through bruised and battered knees and hands to make damn sure I got to the bottom in one piece.

Runes spoiler:

Spoiler

The stairs become a moot issue for anyone else summoned there after Linden. Climbing down Kevin's Rubble should be a breeze by comparison. Of course, after SRD is done with the Last Chronicles, there probably won't be a Land left for anybody to be summoned to anyway. The man is diabolical, I tell you.

Matrixman wrote:

Lucimay wrote:well, if you popped into the Land on the top of Kevin's Watch....how much CHOICE would you have??? egad. i would have but i wouldn't have been happy about it.

Sums it up for me too. I don't like heights; maybe I also would have barfed at some point during the descent, but you just have to grit your teeth and get it done. Being alive is generally preferable to being dead, and that sentiment would make me suffer through bruised and battered knees and hands to make damn sure I got to the bottom in one piece.

Runes spoiler:

Spoiler

The stairs become a moot issue for anyone else summoned there after Linden. Climbing down Kevin's Rubble should be a breeze by comparison. Of course, after SRD is done with the Last Chronicles, there probably won't be a Land left for anybody to be summoned to anyway. The man is diabolical, I tell you.

eggsactly!!!

Loremaster wrote:I wouldn't as I have a fear of heights.

Hey LM: that's so bizarre! Having read the first chapter of your novel I actually *assumed* that you spent your weekends mountain climbing!

no fear of heights. and i would bitch less than Thomas about the whole process.

Seareach wrote:

Loremaster wrote:I wouldn't as I have a fear of heights.

Hey LM: that's so bizarre! Having read the first chapter of your novel I actually *assumed* that you spent your weekends mountain climbing!

My hands were shaking as I wrote that chapter I know alot about mountain climbing because I've enjoyed watching documentaries about them and have read abit. But yeah, it is weird

Good Posting everyone!

I'm actually a bit surprised the Watch was the same in 2nd Chrons, after all wouldn't erosion over thousands of years taken its toll? Especially with all those rainstorms from the Sun of Rain.

It had changed a bit. Forests, etc.

I would climb down it, yes, but I don't think I'd want to continually look over the edge.

KAY1 wrote:Good Posting everyone!

I'm actually a bit surprised the Watch was the same in 2nd Chrons, after all wouldn't erosion over thousands of years taken its toll? Especially with all those rainstorms from the Sun of Rain.

I'd expect the rock was reinforced with Earthpower, similar to Revelstone.

In any case, erosion is very slow indeed. A hard native rock, such as most granites, doesn't erode appreciably in a few thousand years unless it's exposed to sandstorms, rivers, tides, or extreme frost heave. None of those conditions apply here.

However, I expect the stairs would have become rather vague and crumbly in that length of time, unless they were reinforced by Earthpower. Likely Kevin did just that, since he expected to be using them for centuries himself.