So I was re-reading Runes yesterday, and I noticed something interesting.
When we first "visit" Linden's home, we learn that Jeremiah built a huge castle in the entryway; according to Linden though, such castle did not hamper entry into the house, and she does not mention any problems it might cause, so we might suppose it's built in a way as to allow free movement around it. Then we also learn that there is another "permanent sculpture" of Jeremiah's, in his room: a Moebius ring supported by columns, which apparently does hamper movement, so that Linden needs to navigate beneath it to get Jeremiah to bed or to reach his closet, for example, and that when he sleeps, he sleeps beneath it.
Now; when Roger breaks into Linden's house to kidnap Jeremiah and search the white gold ring, he goes through the whole place, leaving a mess everywhere and turning all the lights on. Of course, the biggest mess is in Linden's room, since he thought she kept the ring somewhere in there; but it's worth noting that he also destroyed the entryway castle.
Surprisingly, instead, the Moebius ring remains intact. Roger did not break it, even though it would have been more bothersome to navigate beneath it (in order to get to Jeremiah's bed and kidnap the boy) than to shatter it. So the question is: given that the entryway castle was not a problem blocking Roger's movements, and the Moebius ring was, why was the former broken and the latter was not? If he broke the castle out of spite or malice, why didn't he break the Moebius ring, which was also more annoying to him?
The only reason I can see is that the Moebius ring actually has a meaning Roger recognized; therefore, something which is somehow related to the Land. But if it were a representation of the Arch of Time, given that Roger is Foul's tool, why didn't he break it out of spite? It would have been a representation of his master's prison - which his master is desperate to escape. So why didn't he do it?
Jeremiah's Sculpture
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You mean in the same way as the Staff of Law became the embodiment of Law? It could be, I suppose, but then again it would have been in Roger's and Foul's best interests to break the sculpture, given that - in the real world - it was just made of plastic and thus it was not unbreakable by Roger, even though he was Foul's tool.
What sent a shiver down my spine was the description of Jeremiah demolishing Mount Thunder and Revelstone... I suddenly had the feeling that his actions were much more significative than just demolishing a Lego sculpture. Could that action (which Linden actually prompted) foreshadow the destruction of Revelstone and/or Mount Thunder?
Oh, and about Mount Thunder... remember what the SC said at the end, when Covenant, Linden, the First and Pitchwife enter Mt. Thunder? That the mountain felt to Linden like it was hurt and angered at the banes it was forced to contain, and that it would someday respond, but that day was centuries or millennia away?
What sent a shiver down my spine was the description of Jeremiah demolishing Mount Thunder and Revelstone... I suddenly had the feeling that his actions were much more significative than just demolishing a Lego sculpture. Could that action (which Linden actually prompted) foreshadow the destruction of Revelstone and/or Mount Thunder?
Oh, and about Mount Thunder... remember what the SC said at the end, when Covenant, Linden, the First and Pitchwife enter Mt. Thunder? That the mountain felt to Linden like it was hurt and angered at the banes it was forced to contain, and that it would someday respond, but that day was centuries or millennia away?
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Were we told that Jeremiah was in his room when Roger kidnapped him?
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want
to test a man's character, give him power.
--Abraham Lincoln
Excerpt from Animal Songs Never Written
"Hey, dad," croaked the vulture, "what are you eating?"
"Carrion, my wayward son."
"Will there be pieces when you are done?"
Not explicitly, but:
a) Last time Linden sees him, before going to the Memorial Center, he's sleeping in his bed;
b) Unless he's guided, he doesn't move from where he's left;
c) Sandy wouldn't have had the time to run upstairs, take Jeremiah and hide, given that I presume Roger showed up suddenly, without advance warning;
d) The first room Linden looks in, to see what happened to her son, is Jeremiah's room, so she expected to find him there, if he had not been kidnapped, EVEN AFTER knowing for sure Roger had been there.
From all these details I would say it's almost sure that Jeremiah would have likely been in bed when Roger came.
However, even if he had not been, we know that Roger entered all the various rooms, leaving lights on and (in some of them) searching for his father's ring; if he broke the castle sculpture just out of spite, why shouldn't he have broken the Moebius ring upon seeing it (when he turned the light on in Jeremiah's room)?
Avatar: I have a problem with the Moebius ring being the Arch of Time, which is exactly what you said: the Arch of Time existed far before the construction of the ring. I can accept it being a representation of the Arch, but then a representation wouldn't have any real power, and why wouldn't Roger, in Foul's grip, take the chance to rage against even just a representation of Foul's prison?
a) Last time Linden sees him, before going to the Memorial Center, he's sleeping in his bed;
b) Unless he's guided, he doesn't move from where he's left;
c) Sandy wouldn't have had the time to run upstairs, take Jeremiah and hide, given that I presume Roger showed up suddenly, without advance warning;
d) The first room Linden looks in, to see what happened to her son, is Jeremiah's room, so she expected to find him there, if he had not been kidnapped, EVEN AFTER knowing for sure Roger had been there.
From all these details I would say it's almost sure that Jeremiah would have likely been in bed when Roger came.
However, even if he had not been, we know that Roger entered all the various rooms, leaving lights on and (in some of them) searching for his father's ring; if he broke the castle sculpture just out of spite, why shouldn't he have broken the Moebius ring upon seeing it (when he turned the light on in Jeremiah's room)?
Avatar: I have a problem with the Moebius ring being the Arch of Time, which is exactly what you said: the Arch of Time existed far before the construction of the ring. I can accept it being a representation of the Arch, but then a representation wouldn't have any real power, and why wouldn't Roger, in Foul's grip, take the chance to rage against even just a representation of Foul's prison?
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Yeah, I don't know Xar. To be honest, it seems like one of those things like the red car...significant only because we don't know what is actually significant and what is mere detail.
Perhaps it's a reflection of the Arch, inviolable while the Arch stands...More likely is that it's just something SRD didn't think of.
--A
Perhaps it's a reflection of the Arch, inviolable while the Arch stands...More likely is that it's just something SRD didn't think of.
--A
Re: Jeremiah's Sculpture
I'm new here (just registered about three minutes ago), so my apologies if this has been covered elsewhere/etc/etc.Xar wrote:So I was re-reading Runes yesterday, and I noticed something interesting.
The only reason I can see is that the Moebius ring actually has a meaning Roger recognized; therefore, something which is somehow related to the Land. But if it were a representation of the Arch of Time, given that Roger is Foul's tool, why didn't he break it out of spite? It would have been a representation of his master's prison - which his master is desperate to escape. So why didn't he do it?
I think you answered your own question above: I assumed while reading that the Moebius Ring was a representation of (though not tied directly to) the Arch of Time. Which means that if Roger is Foul's tool, he CAN'T break it, for exactly the same reasons Foul can't.
Cheers,
Dagonet
That reasoning has a logical fallacy, though... if the Moebius ring is a representation of the Arch of Time, given that it exists in the real world it cannot be subject to the same "embodiment effect" the Staff of Law underwent, becoming the embodiment of Law. This Moebius ring, if it were a representation of the Arch of Time, would be like a stone statue that represents a living person. Roger could easily break it, because the ring is a representation, not the real thing or its embodiment. In fact, given the state of the Arch of Time now, with the caesures and all, the sculpture is far too pristine...
I think the racetrack sculpture and the plot surrounding it is so unusual that it MUST represent the Arch of Time or it makes no sense in the story at all. I think the holes in the Arch are not in the sculpture for the same reason the Staff of Law didn't develop any visible flaws when Elena broke the Law of Death.
The Racetrack Sculpture of Time... Perhaps the reason Roger didn't break it was that the sculpture was more useful to Lord Foul intact. After all, Lord Foul didn't break the Staff of Law either when he had the chance, even though he later also benefitted greatly from its destruction.
Breaking the sculpture would most likely accomplish nothing else than some additional weakening of the Arch and in the worst case awaken the Worm. Controlling the sculpture somehow could have rather significant consequences, and that might be what Lord Foul is trying to accomplish. On the other hand, perhaps the sculpture has enough innate power that even someone like Roger couldn't just destroy it without consequences. The destruction of the Staff of Law released some fairly significant energies too.
The Racetrack Sculpture of Time... Perhaps the reason Roger didn't break it was that the sculpture was more useful to Lord Foul intact. After all, Lord Foul didn't break the Staff of Law either when he had the chance, even though he later also benefitted greatly from its destruction.
Breaking the sculpture would most likely accomplish nothing else than some additional weakening of the Arch and in the worst case awaken the Worm. Controlling the sculpture somehow could have rather significant consequences, and that might be what Lord Foul is trying to accomplish. On the other hand, perhaps the sculpture has enough innate power that even someone like Roger couldn't just destroy it without consequences. The destruction of the Staff of Law released some fairly significant energies too.
Xar wrote:That reasoning has a logical fallacy, though... if the Moebius ring is a representation of the Arch of Time, given that it exists in the real world it cannot be subject to the same "embodiment effect" the Staff of Law underwent, becoming the embodiment of Law. This Moebius ring, if it were a representation of the Arch of Time, would be like a stone statue that represents a living person. Roger could easily break it, because the ring is a representation, not the real thing or its embodiment. In fact, given the state of the Arch of Time now, with the caesures and all, the sculpture is far too pristine...
A logical fallacy? <sad face> That would be a bad thing, right?
Let's see how I can tweak the argument, then. . . Why can't Jeremiah's Arch be party to the embodiment effect just because it exists in the real world? White gold embodies wild magic regardless of where it is; otherwise Roger could have just *taken* Joan's ring and headed for the nearest portal to wherever Foul's set up shop this time. And of course Joan's self-despite in the hospital spawns Caesuras in The Land. It seems reasonable, then, that since Foul can't break the Arch on his own, one of his tools can't break a representation of the Arch.
Tengentially, if the racetrack arch has a real and direct connection to the Arch of Time, what are the implications of Jeremiah bringing a piece of the arch (the red car) with him to The Land?
The laws of nature in the real world are different from those of the Land's Earth; but my idea is that actions in the real world can affect the Land to some extent. To answer your questions about Roger needing Covenant's ring: first of all, it is possible that Covenant's ring, being Covenant's, is more closely attuned to wild magic due to the fact that Covenant himself is now the embodiment of wild magic. But it could also simply be a matter of the necessity of freedom. I'm not persuaded that when Roger entered Linden's house and violated her every room, he was actually going to steal the ring, had he found it: I think Foul wouldn't have allowed him to. Or perhaps he would have stolen it, but Foul would still have had need of giving it back to Linden somehow, or allowing Linden to take it, since such a ring would not have been freely given, and thus would have been useless. In fact, you might say that Roger insists on Covenant's ring because he can't take his mother's: her crippled mental state would not allow her to willingly relinquish it, and therefore her ring wouldn't have the power Foul needs. Not to mention that Roger is Foul's tool, anyway.
But you will notice that nowhere in the books you have evidence of wild magic in the real world, for example; at the same time, Joan's actions create no caesures in the real world. And from what we've seen, the only thing that can reach through the worlds from the Land to the real world is the Staff of Law (and now, Foul, of course). It follows that, since the Arch of Time is a construct of the Land, it cannot "reach out" and "be embodied" in Jeremiah's construct; first of all because we don't know if it can reach the real world from the Land, but above all because intent is necessary for this embodiment to take place. The Staff of Law embodied Law because it was crafted for the purpose of upholding Law; but Jeremiah's construct, as far as we know, was not crafted for the purpose of upholding the Arch of Time.
And of course, if it HAD been, and if therefore the Moebius ring had been an embodiment of the Arch, then Foul's best bet, rather than relying on complicated plans, would have been to somehow arrange for someone to simply break up the ring - a much easier thing to accomplish than building a complicated plan in hopes someone will break the Arch in the Land and set you free.
As for the red car question, you'll notice that Jeremiah never used those cars on the Moebius ring; they are not part of it, therefore even if the ring were a representation of the Arch, they would not be part of the Arch, as far as we know.
Don't misunderstand me: there should be a reason why it is specifically mentioned that Roger wrecked the entryway castle but not the more cumbersome Moebius ring; I'd just like to get stronger arguments about it
But you will notice that nowhere in the books you have evidence of wild magic in the real world, for example; at the same time, Joan's actions create no caesures in the real world. And from what we've seen, the only thing that can reach through the worlds from the Land to the real world is the Staff of Law (and now, Foul, of course). It follows that, since the Arch of Time is a construct of the Land, it cannot "reach out" and "be embodied" in Jeremiah's construct; first of all because we don't know if it can reach the real world from the Land, but above all because intent is necessary for this embodiment to take place. The Staff of Law embodied Law because it was crafted for the purpose of upholding Law; but Jeremiah's construct, as far as we know, was not crafted for the purpose of upholding the Arch of Time.
And of course, if it HAD been, and if therefore the Moebius ring had been an embodiment of the Arch, then Foul's best bet, rather than relying on complicated plans, would have been to somehow arrange for someone to simply break up the ring - a much easier thing to accomplish than building a complicated plan in hopes someone will break the Arch in the Land and set you free.
As for the red car question, you'll notice that Jeremiah never used those cars on the Moebius ring; they are not part of it, therefore even if the ring were a representation of the Arch, they would not be part of the Arch, as far as we know.
Don't misunderstand me: there should be a reason why it is specifically mentioned that Roger wrecked the entryway castle but not the more cumbersome Moebius ring; I'd just like to get stronger arguments about it
I think I should have said this better, but as per another thread, I think Arch of Time = the set of Laws. So in a way the racetrack thing would be equal to a yet another new Staff of Law. Breaking it wouldn't accomplish all that much in the greater scheme of things, really. Joan's caesures are already wreaking a lot of havoc, and Roger was a tool anyway.
Take a look at the part where Linden thinks about how Jeremiah constructed the sculpture. It's quite lengthy, and it's clear that there's something extraordinary going there, like how Linden never actually saw Jeremiah make the thing. One possibility is that Jeremiah didn't make it at all, but it was all the Creator's doing so that the Arch of Time would be a little stronger and more resistant to things like Kevin's Dirt.
Interesting point: Jeremiah's pajamas are sky-blue, just like a Lord's robes. The red color of the car however is not very reassuring.
Take a look at the part where Linden thinks about how Jeremiah constructed the sculpture. It's quite lengthy, and it's clear that there's something extraordinary going there, like how Linden never actually saw Jeremiah make the thing. One possibility is that Jeremiah didn't make it at all, but it was all the Creator's doing so that the Arch of Time would be a little stronger and more resistant to things like Kevin's Dirt.
Interesting point: Jeremiah's pajamas are sky-blue, just like a Lord's robes. The red color of the car however is not very reassuring.
To be honest, I too believe the Moebius ring to be significant. But I feel I need better reasons than the concept of the "representation" described above, because the laws of nature that allowed the Staff of Law to embody Law do not necessarily work in the real world, and it is even more unlikely that they work between worlds.Nerdanel wrote:I think I should have said this better, but as per another thread, I think Arch of Time = the set of Laws. So in a way the racetrack thing would be equal to a yet another new Staff of Law. Breaking it wouldn't accomplish all that much in the greater scheme of things, really. Joan's caesures are already wreaking a lot of havoc, and Roger was a tool anyway.
Take a look at the part where Linden thinks about how Jeremiah constructed the sculpture. It's quite lengthy, and it's clear that there's something extraordinary going there, like how Linden never actually saw Jeremiah make the thing. One possibility is that Jeremiah didn't make it at all, but it was all the Creator's doing so that the Arch of Time would be a little stronger and more resistant to things like Kevin's Dirt.
Interesting point: Jeremiah's pajamas are sky-blue, just like a Lord's robes. The red color of the car however is not very reassuring.
This goes back to the Creator. That is what he does and now that is what Jerimiah does. The Creator has (I suspect) made more than one world...
He has 'touched' Jerimiah in some way and so now Jerimiah's sculptures reflect that. The slight awarness that Jerimiah has may be due to this 'touch' by the Creator? IMHO
He has 'touched' Jerimiah in some way and so now Jerimiah's sculptures reflect that. The slight awarness that Jerimiah has may be due to this 'touch' by the Creator? IMHO