The Masters' simony

Mighara Sovmadhi · Posted: Tue Apr 23, 2013 8:30 am Post subject: The Masters' simony

What have the Masters withheld from the people of the Land? Their birthright. The power of wood and stone. Like a certain church did once upon a time, the Masters have retained for themselves the moral power of their charges' society. In exchange for their own virtues they have made the Land's people pay the price of the meaning of their own lives. The Masters have, in other words, decided that only the Haruchai "Lords" (if you will) get to decide the outcome of the Land by their own valor or failure--they have horded this decision from the Land's natives.

This seems to me to indicate that the redemption of the Masters will turn to some extent on their returning to the people of the Land the important knowledge of wood and stone otherwise lost to name and use now. I feel like there might be something important stored in Revelstone that could serve such a talismanic role in TLD. However, I think more that the message encoded into Revelstone itself by the Giants of Seareach will play a revelatory role in this context. Reading the passage where Pitchwife (IIRC) remarks upon the glory of that message reminded me in retrospect of passages that SRD has reported as "foreshadowings" of Last Chronicles issues (like the horror the Cavewights threatened to raise mutated into SWMNBN).

Iolanthe · Posted: Tue Apr 23, 2013 9:43 am Post subject:

I'm going to have to read the last Chronicles again. I can remember only one instance of the ordinary people of the land appearing in the last Chronicles in real time, and that is at the beginning in the Stonedowners village. The ordinary people of the land are impotent to do anything, made so by the Masters. How can they learn in a few days what it took generations of their ancestors to learn over time? The Stonedown and Woodhelvin villages appear to have little contact with each other in the last Chronicles. Oh, I just remembered the fight near the Woodhelven where hurtloam was used and the Masters had to take the people to Revelstone so that they couldn't tell anyone else about it. Liand learned some of the uses of orcrest pretty quickly, but that was a minute part of the knowledge of the old Stonedowners.
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I am playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order!

"I must state plainly, Linden, that you have become wondrous in my sight."

SkurjMaster · Posted: Tue Apr 23, 2013 3:19 pm Post subject: Kevin's Wards

Are Kevin's Wards completely lost at this point? Do the Haruchai still know where these were secreted? Maybe they could redeem themselves in part by finding and distributing them? Without the oath of peace, they might be easier to master.

Vraith · Posted: Tue Apr 23, 2013 3:48 pm Post subject: Re: Kevin's Wards

Krilly · Posted: Tue Apr 23, 2013 7:08 pm Post subject:

To me it seems they're witholding the freedom to be guilty. They're trying to be Masters of morality.

The haruchai think "Okay, so power fundamentally makes you guilty of either evil (misuse of power) or innaction (not using your power) so let's take all power away and make people impotent (and thus, innocent)."

TC learned the lessons of this kind of thinking helluva long time ago IN THE FIRST SERIES (see: Celebration of Spring, battle of so-and-so, etc) The haruchai are... umm... slow learners. Rolling Eyes

(Except for you guys, Brinn, Cail, and Stave... you're cool Cool

)

The Masters greatly misinterpret how exactly Corruption was twice defeated. If they truly understood, they would know that only those with the capacity for evil can defeat Him and save the Land.

Mighara Sovmadhi · Posted: Fri Apr 26, 2013 6:29 pm Post subject:

Remember how the Humbled are technically maimed to resemble the three Bloodguard who tried to directly fight Corruption (IIRC)? What if some of or most of the Masters actually turn from the cause of the Land? How endless is the Haruchai havoc, really?

earthbrah · Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2013 2:15 am Post subject:

Vraith wrote:

call11back · Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2013 4:59 pm Post subject:

I suspect that the Ranyhyn will force this issue with the Masters, either by entering the Land without warning or by forcing the Master to choose whether they will let the steeds enter.

Zarathustra · Posted: Wed Oct 16, 2013 11:44 am Post subject:

Mighara Sovmadhi, had you read an advanced copy? Your word choice in the title is oddly appropriate. I'm up to page 70 or so, so no major spoiler yet. But "simony" caught my eye. I'd never heard it before reading it in LD.

[Edit: nevermind. I just realized that was the chapter released on SRD's website. I never read it until now.]
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Meaning is created internally by each individual in each specific life: any attempt at *meaning* which relies on some kind of external superstructure (God, Satan, the Creator, the Worm, whatever) for its substance misses the point (I mean the point of my story). -SRD

Remain faithful to the earth, my brothers, with the power of your virtue. Let your gift-giving love and your knowledge serve the meaning of the earth ... Do not let them fly away from earthly things and beat with their wings against eternal walls. Alas, there has always been so much virtue that has flown away. Lead back to the earth the virtue that flew away, as I do-back to the body, back to life, that it may give the earth a meaning, a human meaning. -Nietzsche

Billy G. · Posted: Wed Oct 16, 2013 3:48 pm Post subject:

I think Simony is a wrong choice of words here.

If you read the book of Acts, simony is trying to buy something (power of God, in biblical meaning) that can only be given freely to those who ask.

Spoiler:

What Brinn accused the Humbled and the Masters of, was in effect the reverse of simony. Denying Earthpower to the Land's people. I don't however know the correct word for anti-simony. Maybe antisimony? Razz

Zarathustra · Posted: Wed Oct 16, 2013 9:40 pm Post subject:

I think the general idea is that people have a legacy of "transcendence," which should be their own in virtue of merely being born. And yet the Masters put themselves in charge of denying this transcendental heritage, when they have as little right to deny it as the Church has a right to deny you forgiveness without pay. It's not an exact parallel, but close.
_________________
Meaning is created internally by each individual in each specific life: any attempt at *meaning* which relies on some kind of external superstructure (God, Satan, the Creator, the Worm, whatever) for its substance misses the point (I mean the point of my story). -SRD

Remain faithful to the earth, my brothers, with the power of your virtue. Let your gift-giving love and your knowledge serve the meaning of the earth ... Do not let them fly away from earthly things and beat with their wings against eternal walls. Alas, there has always been so much virtue that has flown away. Lead back to the earth the virtue that flew away, as I do-back to the body, back to life, that it may give the earth a meaning, a human meaning. -Nietzsche

Vraith · Posted: Wed Oct 16, 2013 10:35 pm Post subject: