April 19, 2024 • 53 mins
In this episode, we cover Chapter 8—The Dawn of the Message—of Lord Foul's Bane, the first book of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson.
Hosted by Cams and Barge, two old friends of many years. Cams has read all of these books, most of them multiple times. It's Barge's first time.
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Episode Transcript
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(01:00:00):
Hey everybody welcome to another episode
of The Unbelievers. I'm Cams, your host—an
Unbeliever, and I'm joined by ... Yeah, Barge
the Unbeliever, so two Unbelievers
together talking about another Unbeliever
Thomas Covenant right and I wonder how
(01:00:23):
many Unbelievers there are in the
audience who are like me on the journey
for the first time and who are sticking
with it yeah that would be good to know
yeah I mean right yeah we're at this kind
of juncture where I mean Thomas
(01:00:44):
Covenant is convinced he's in a
dream, but is he? And yeah, let's find
out, and we've also just crossed the
Rubicon this is the point where we might
have lost a few listeners having just
(01:01:07):
finished chapter 7 where the violation
scene takes place and I know from having
seen online over the years on Kevin's
Watch forum and places like that that's
the scene that makes a lot of people
quit so if you're still with us nice one
glad to have you we're going to get
(01:01:28):
some of the consequences now and it's an
interesting a kind of journey to go
along with a hero that is that is
displaying behavior that I mean is
pretty despicable so so it's interesting
(01:01:50):
to see how this develops I mean yeah
that's let's let's go with it an anti
hero I guess you would call him well at
the moment so we're in chapter 8 the
title of which is the Dawn of the Message.
so we're covering just one chapter today
(01:02:10):
we start where we finished her
Covenant has just done the deed he's
violated young Lena she's run off and
then he falls asleep I guess yeah so I
mean he saw his lust takes over he
(01:02:30):
violates and then he vomits right she so
he he he gets rid of something and then
there's this sense of the river taking it
away right and then he wakes up the
next morning and he actually feels really
(01:02:53):
good he's just aware that he's
had an orgasm and how how it's like
almost impossible yeah heart heart
rending so precious that he would have
been willing to coin his soul to make
make such things part of his real life
(01:03:14):
for a long moment of
joy he re-experienced
that sensation then he remembered that to
get it he had hurt Lena right so I'm
yeah so then what does he what does he do
like so he plans to flee right because
(01:03:37):
his gradually Covenant panic receded
after a last look around he began to
prepare for what lay ahead of him and
then he decides just to suppress the
memory and keep moving survive and you
know all that stuff he just doesn't
(01:03:58):
want to go back to what he did so his
first kind of action is to put himself
through a thorough VSE virtual
surveillance of extremities which is his
ritual to check whether he's been hurt or
is in any danger yeah and he finds
(01:04:23):
that actually he's not going to be
running away because just there in the
banks is Atiaran before that he jumps in
the water doesn't he he jumps into the
river and feels the seductive pool of the
(01:04:43):
water urging him to float off under
the blue skies but he doesn't he washes
himself and that's when he sees Atiaran
and when he comes back out from having
ducked his head under the water and
then I mean what must be going through
(01:05:04):
his head like this you know and what's
what's happening and he tries to figure
out she doesn't say much he says she
basically tells him to come along and get
dry yeah and so he assumes that she
doesn't know which is a surprise to him
(01:05:28):
she even then tells him that Lena told
Trell that he was here so basically he's
surprised that there's no accusation no
and so he he kind of tests it a bit
further and he he asks her if she
(01:05:50):
actually saw Lena that's right yeah and
at the errands says that she didn't and
she went to spend a night with a friend
and just shouted out from outside as she
passed the house so she's come to take
him to Revelstone right but I mean yeah
(01:06:11):
and so so carbon basically figures out
from that that she hasn't been told and
that what Lena is doing is is to
sacrifice herself yeah in a sense and
because she thinks that he's he's very
confident and and rather than as a word
(01:06:34):
draw attention to revenge or something
she wants him to get on with his mission
I guess yeah and so she's willing to do
that so because of his status she's
sacrificing herself for the good of the
Land yeah and and so then then I hear
(01:06:55):
and says about needing to guide him to
Lord's keep yeah so we're told then
about the fact that the cave white has
found the Staff of Law so we're being
that's been reintroduced as the theme of
the opening of the novel so we're
talking about Drool Rockworm and he says
(01:07:16):
I gather he doesn't really know how to
use it somehow the Lords have got to get
it away from him so that's that's the
mission and then Atiaran explains that
Revelstone is 300 leagues
which I had to look up so it's basically
(01:07:36):
900 miles right—1500 km—yeah so how does
Covenant know how far a league is without
having to have it explained to
us or does he well I guess I mean it was
it was fairly common parlance no I
(01:07:57):
mean when I looked it up it said the
leagues kind of differed in
terms of the distance he's from he's from
Haven Farm in America so his first
question should have been no how far is
that in miles then I see maybe he just
(01:08:17):
accepts it's a long way and just goes
along with it yeah and and I guess is
his yeah I mean his mind isn't
particularly clear at the moment no I
mean you'll come up against distance
later on yeah so we get another mention
here of the Ranyhyn, which are the
(01:08:39):
horses of the Land and they cannot go to
them for help she says the Ramen have
little countenance for the affairs of
the Land and no Ranyhyn has been ridden
safe by Lord or Bloodguard since the
age began so we must walk Thomas Covenant
so the Ranyhyn are different
(01:09:01):
from regular horses I take it because
there is I remember reference to horses
is that is that correct yeah they were
mentioned earlier somewhere and so were
the ramen who are the the ones who look
after the Ranyhyn and the I can't
remember what it said previously but they
(01:09:24):
were definitely brought up before
right so what's happening so she's she's
basically presenting herself as the
guide and she asks him if if he trusts
her to guide him because she she says I
(01:09:45):
failed in the Loresraat, yeah I wanted to
ask you about that you've got some German
knowledge is that rat anything like the
German 'raat' well yeah exactly or maybe
Dutch you know or Scandinavian but the
same kind of thing that's so yeah kind of
(01:10:09):
advisory place so you know a municipal
building or official type kind of you
know policymaking building type thing
right I think this is more like an
academy of some sort right where one
studies the lore which we get to in a
bit and the big info dump about the
(01:10:31):
lore yeah so she's quite down on herself
she doesn't see herself as
having enough status to be his guide
because she failed and she also has a
feeling that he knows more than he's
letting on and she accuses him of that
when he starts talking about the message
(01:10:53):
that he was given again and she says I
think you are too eager to know my
ignorance but then she goes on to talk
to him about the history of the Land
basically what she
learned at the Loresraat
who the Lords are and she mentions the
(01:11:13):
Ravers for the first time I don't
believe they've been mentioned before the
spies the Giants know the Giants are
the ones who built Revelstone for Loric
High Lord Loric—yeah, the Giants are the
(01:11:37):
good guys huh I mean doesn't it say that
they weren't affected by the desolation
oh we come to that later yeah yeah yeah
it wasn't Lorik was it Damelon it was
Lord Damelon because he's known as Lord
Damelon Giantfriend so he was
Lord of Revelstone when the ordnance the
(01:11:58):
Giants built Revelstone out of the
rock for Damelon that gets mentioned
later but here we've got the Ravers the
spies of the Gray Slayer, they cannot die
well he yet lives they have no bodies of
their own and their spirits wander until
they find living beings which they can
(01:12:20):
master thus they appear as animals or
humans as chance allows corrupting the
life of the Land so that's yeah she also
mentions that they've got to pass Mount
Thunder which is a pretty dangerous place
(01:12:41):
yeah that's where the Covenant was
summoned to when he first appeared in
Kiril Threndor which is Mount Thunder
that's where the cave was when Drool
summoned them with the staff of law and
we also see Kevin's Watch we get another
glance of Kevin's Watch but this time
(01:13:04):
from below a four thousand feet indeed
it's mentioned yeah so I've underlined
that just to make
note of the height of it
right so they've set off Thomas Covenant to
convince he's still in a dream
(01:13:26):
he's kind of
uh shamed and relieved that she hasn't
discovered his uh his secret and his
night's work in his face as it says but
he's he's feeling so there is that guilt
(01:13:47):
but for the time being he seems to escape
any uh particular consequences yeah um
and uh also as they set off he realizes
that this is gonna this
is when he realizes that
it's it's a massive distance and that she
doesn't know that he's a leper yeah so
(01:14:11):
I don't remember if you ever mentioned it
to her but even if he had she wouldn't
have known what it meant yeah so we're
reminded again of the
Desecration just as we go past
Kevin's watch he's reminded of
his summoning and she explains about
(01:14:31):
Kevin Landwaster once again high lord and
wielder of the staff
direct descendant of Berek Halfhand in
the last battle against the Gray Slayer
Desecration the end of all things in the
Land for many generations
so this is the it's the most important
(01:14:51):
part in the Land's history
really when it all changed
and that's kind of the starting point
from the Land's point of view
that's led to where we are now
right so uh she's also beginning to get
some misgivings about being
(01:15:12):
followed well she says yeah I feel
something wrong upon our
pastest day um and he's also got
misgivings kind of thing but they have
pangs of guilt yeah uh but
she she does say that she feels
they're being followed perhaps but anyway
(01:15:36):
um yeah and then
she's giving him the lore
yeah so we get an info dump here which is
another dense couple of
pages with the Land's history
so yeah we get told about Berwick's son
Damelon giant friend and
(01:15:58):
his son Lorik Vile Silencer so
these are all lords and it did mention
somewhere that Kevin was
lord for a thousand years
when he stood at head of the council so
that's a surprise
piece of information that
the lifespan of these inhabitants of the
(01:16:18):
Land is not like it is for
us um and also there's a sense
I mean for for anybody who hasn't read
this before like that's
okay so uh like Berwick
half-hand is like the father of this
entire kind of uh ancestry yeah it's like
(01:16:39):
the noble line almost
right um and he was the one who defeated
the grace layer or the
darkness or the cloud or
whatever it was however they described it
after the king and queen
of the Land had divided
(01:17:01):
and the king had been corrupted by the
cloud or the darkness
and Berwick was the queen's champion and
he defeated the darkness I
see so this is chronologically
comes after that right yeah yeah so right
right right so interesting
(01:17:21):
so then uh um Kevin's rule
was the or Kevin's whatever you know
steward chip was the uh time when the
lore was gathered into
the seven wards is it yeah so he's I
guess the fourth in line so
(01:17:41):
we've got Berwick we've got
Damalon we've got Lorik and then we've
got Kevin so that could be
four thousand years or more
if Kevin was lord for a thousand years
right so basically there was this span of
(01:18:01):
uh time where there was as it were
positive development in
the Land and then the lore
yeah the lore was collected um it says
that he gathers up the lore
when he sees the first hints
that the ancient shadow was alive right
that's when he gathered
all his lore into seven wards
(01:18:24):
so I'm I guess for four thousand years or
however long it was after
Berwick defeated the shadow
by calling the fire lions from mount
thunder when he swore
an oath to the Land then
this the shadow must have been recovering
(01:18:45):
or hiding or I don't
know a bit like Voldemort
that's what it makes me think of for some
reason uh right or never completely
defeated or whatever
I mean um or maybe it's not possible to
do that who knows yeah um
but it right so then during
(01:19:08):
this as it were golden age so to speak uh
uh then as as the hint of
the end of the golden age of
period was coming then Kevin kind of gets
all the knowledge
together in in the form of the
the the lore yeah right which gets
divided into seven parts
seven wards yes and then hidden
(01:19:30):
and hidden yeah so that the knowledge
would not pass from the Land even if he
and the old lords fell
right so then whatever he was kind of uh
sensing appears in the
form of a Trojan horse huh
(01:19:50):
um the gray slayer rose up in the guise
of a friend yes and he
gets a seat in the council
yeah
yeah
(01:20:12):
right but that's that's that the poison's
in and boom yeah I mean end of peace yeah
so then he gets betrayed and that'll be
when they set off the
Ritual of Desecration
so it's Kevin who does that with the
staff of law and it's at that
(01:20:33):
point that the staff of law is
lost and I see the gray slayer then gets
to have dominion over the
destroyed Land I suppose
right but it also said then this is where
we learned that the giants
rock brothers of the people of the Land
(01:20:53):
had survived the Ritual
of Desecration yeah exactly
and it was they who had stewardship over
the first ward yeah right
and they swore to master
the law that they might heal the Land and
to master themselves that
they would not fall into
the anger and despair which made which
(01:21:15):
made Kevin his own worst
foe yeah right so they are
um they're kind of guardians of sorts and
and um in the period after
the Desecration then they are part of the
revival yeah well they
(01:21:36):
return with the first ward
and they under the the lordship of no
back in before the
Desecration when they they were
building revelstone for damelon giant
(01:21:56):
friend and revelstone is the
seat of the council of lords
the council of lords the ageless castle
city which they had driven out of the
rock of the mountain
for high lord damelon as surety of the
bond between them actually
yeah so this is when they return
(01:22:19):
the first ward of Kevin's Lore for he
had trusted it to the
giants before the last battle
and the people accepted that ward and
consecrated themselves swearing earth
friendship and loyal
to the power and beauty of the Land so we
don't know how much time has
passed since the Desecration
when berek forms this noble line or
(01:22:45):
whatever it is this council of lords
right uh you mean before the first
Desecration no there's only one
Desecration also the Kevin
Desecration is the only one yeah so
before berek was the big
battle it was the big battle yeah
big right i see and then the giant
(01:23:06):
survived the Desecration which was the
Kevin Desecration yes
right right so we don't know how long
after this Desecration
we're in in the current time
that's what you're saying yeah right yeah
okay yeah right uh we do
get a sense of the scope of
(01:23:27):
the lord which i thought was was really
well described no yeah um
so that from the beginning of
the second era up until now the lords
have been working with only the first
ward and they haven't
mastered that yeah and there are seven
and it says here that the
(01:23:49):
lord is a deep matter not
mastered yet despite all the years and
effort that have been given
to it the chiefest problem
is translation i really like that for the
language of the old yeah
for the old lords was not like
ours and the worlds which is simple at
one place are difficult at
another yeah the words and after
(01:24:09):
translation the law must then be
interpreted and the skills to
use it must be learned yeah so
there's a lot being lost and all the
knowledge in the laws rat is just one
seventh of the whole
yeah and it's not all of that seventh
either right because
(01:24:31):
they haven't mastered it
right right so all they really have it
says the easiest of
translation was the war lore
arts of battle and defense
so there's a war word which i guess is
the army of lords keep but
there have been no wars in our
time which is interesting because we're
(01:24:54):
talking maybe four
thousand years no since Kevin till
now we don't know how long that is we
don't know how long that is exactly but
they haven't had any
wars so what's lord foul been up to and
all of that time we don't
know there's been a time of
(01:25:14):
peace yeah and there's a bit where
Atiaran, she's
talking about well she's talking
about the Lore in terms of you know what
what she learned in her
experience at the Loresraat,
and she she then goes on to say why she
gave up and and that was
(01:25:36):
interesting because it's
almost like she gave up because she
couldn't bear to feel or
experience the the dark intensity
it says over here, "that which I learned
made my heart quell when
the Lorewardens led me
(01:25:57):
to see just a little way into the Despite
of the Gray Slayer that i
could not bear and so I broke
my devotion and returned." So that's
a theme of this is the Ritual of
Desecration is described
as having happened because because of
(01:26:18):
Kevin's despair that he
he gave into the despair
and Atiaran is not willing to do that as
the feeling i'm getting here
that to to learn of the despair is to is
perhaps too much for one to take
it's risky but they also have knowledge
(01:26:41):
of the Ritual of
Desecration which Kevin would not have
had at that time because there had never
been one oh i see so
now the the Lore wardens
are conscious of what it can lead to
i mean one thing that that occurs to me
(01:27:02):
is you know uh uh a newbie
to all this is like okay so
Kevin invoked the Desecration so i mean
that's so he called it upon
the Land and uh that must have
been uh as it were a lesser evil than the
alternative i would
(01:27:23):
imagine otherwise why do it
uh unless of course uh Kevin like why
would you rule you know like
uh you know like a good guy
for a thousand years and then turn so
rather than the rather
than allow the grace layer to
take the Land he would rather destroy it
(01:27:46):
uh well uh that seems to
be a possibility then i mean
because you know the grace layer uh so
the trojan horse came in in
the form of a friend right
uh and then became a war lord and and and
then the poison was in the system yeah uh
he had sensed that already because he had
(01:28:08):
he had done the prep by
kind of uh putting the
law together and then hiding it yeah um
so uh he then must have made the
connection that this is
this is what i sensed coming into being
right so so yeah to my mind
anyway the Desecration then
(01:28:28):
sounds like a a certainly a lesser of the
two and some sort of
maybe protective move yeah
particularly given the fact that he's
secured the Lore for future retrieval
right right right right
and uh it's not clear whether he knew the
(01:28:48):
giants would survive um but
i mean he gave it to them and
maybe uh yeah maybe he had a sense of
that and maybe maybe he even
forewarned them so that they
could who knows yeah yeah but it's also
his desperation at that
time wouldn't have been
dissimilar to bearecks despair when the
(01:29:12):
fire lines came to his rescue
because he was defeated as he stood on
the hillside and then he
swore his oath to the earth
in return for aid from the
fire lines of mount thunder
so he took a different route although i
(01:29:34):
suppose he didn't have an
alternative other than his own
destruction but that's it that's the big
difference right it's
his individual destruction
isn't it because i mean the battle's lost
he's fled it's just him no but
no but the Land would have been lost
(01:29:58):
right yeah no no he did
know that when he took the oath
because the rock said to him that uh you
will have a friend and
yeah all right earth friend
i think but he didn't he didn't he didn't
i mean he did it yeah
exactly this is like yeah either
you do this or you die yeah so yeah okay
(01:30:20):
do it um whereas uh with
Kevin then it's it's a far
more considered thing yeah it was
prepared for wasn't it uh
right so in the story where are we
then so she's she's giving him this all
this this lore that we've been
(01:30:40):
discussing yeah yeah and then
she she questions him about his message
and he says i'm not your
bloody berek because she seems
to think that he knows more than he's
letting on so he reiterates
his message to her and explains
because she's surprised how he knows who
the current lord is
because she doesn't yeah yeah
(01:31:01):
so she's like yeah you taking the piss to
him as Covenant he's like
no no here's the message i
was given again and yeah he says it word
for word and during the message it is
told to us that high
lord prothel son of dwillian yeah so
we've got that yeah and it's
interesting to see the effect
(01:31:22):
of just uttering those words on
everything around it's like uh you know
the bird stopped chirping
and and um it's it has just uh just
uttering the words yeah it does yeah um
and the stream appeared
motionless right exactly yeah it's like
(01:31:44):
poison or actually no it
doesn't and not necessarily
but it it has uh an effect um for an
instance complete silence
surrounded him the birds were
as silent as if they had been stricken
out of the sky and the stream
appeared motionless yeah and
then ati arran gaped and cries out melon
(01:32:06):
curian abatha which have
underlined yeah no explanation
is given do not speak it until you must
so it's kind of like not
saying the the name of voldemort
out loud it's like an omen uh i guess and
that's that's i don't know
like saying whatever yeah
(01:32:27):
we hail mary's to cancel it out right
right right and then she
says to him you are close
to me thomas coverant i do not see you
and she means by the word
see as if she meant something
he did not understand and then when she
repeats it she says i do
not know whether you are well
(01:32:48):
or ill i that's when he gets his chance
to tell her yeah i'm
ill of course i'm a leper
and then she groaned as if he he had just
confessed to a crime then woe to the Land
for you have wild magic and can undo us
all and he's like what it's
just a ring what you on about
(01:33:09):
it's got no more wild magic than a rock
which is kind of the
wrong analogy isn't it because
in the Land the earth is the source of
all power is her response and yeah
there's a lot of jumping
about i mean like does she then know what
a leper is it's not made
clear but he does use the word
l so i suppose you can put two and two
(01:33:32):
together uh yeah right okay and then
right okay so basically
she she says she doesn't know whether
he's ill or well yes and
maybe because if that takes the
l box then then yeah we're doomed i see
yeah right right right and
then there's the follower
then there's this interesting kind of
(01:33:52):
play out of events yeah we get a bit of
an action scene here
a young man appears unmistakably a stone
downer so at this point
we don't know who he is
and he yells at him and calls him a raver
and this used to be funny to us because
yeah we read this in the 90s which for
(01:34:16):
those that don't know was a a period of
raves in scotLand anyway her in the uk as
opposed throughout was
when all the acid house was
kicking off and raves were a big thing so
this was written in the 70s
before any of that was a thing
but it was quite culturally amusing to us
all right so this guy
(01:34:38):
this this guy appears uh
at the isLand runs off and uh thomas
actually turns around and
stands to face the attacker
and he gets cut on his hands and that's
when at the isLand calls out triok
(01:34:59):
right so there's one thing though by
saying ravisher it's clear
that he knows what thomas
Covenant is done yes and there was a bit
where i wrote down earlier on when
ati arran says the bitter vehemence of
(01:35:21):
her reply surprised him so
when she said she's talking
about the lor's rat and i've written on
the side she knows says the bitter
vehemence of her reply
surprised him do you remind me that i am
of all people the least
worthy to talk of these matters
you thomas Covenant Unbeliever and white
gold wielder do you
reproach me so at that point i
(01:35:44):
thought maybe she knows just the way
she's throwing it back at
them but then we're it's
revealed that she didn't so yeah so uh
yeah so it it's clear that
she knows the attacker triok
so she says yeah so we know him too he
(01:36:04):
has been mentioned before
but only once and in passing
right he's a guy who fancies lina yeah we
did chat about that on a previous episode
she thought that she would be tied down
if she went with him
because he had no ambition whereas
she did right yes yes so he's obviously
in love with her and now
(01:36:25):
he wants to defend her honor
and kill Covenant and so he yeah he
slashes out and yeah um and
then ati alan remains him of his
oath of peace interesting and she yeah
she forbids him from uh
(01:36:46):
taking revenge and you might think
that thomas Covenant would be kind of
like mortified right but
he's totally oblivious yeah
it's it's well written this scene he's
like you know like he's
just fascinated that he's got
(01:37:08):
feeling in his fingers yeah they've
written that on the
side here still oblivious
when it's all going down and he's like
impossible can't happen nerves don't
regenerate after having
just been revealed as a as a rapist in
front of the victim's mother he's not
(01:37:28):
even aware of what's
going on so i suppose that gives a sense
of just how how powerful
this must feel to him as a leper
to have no hope because it is we do get a
callback of something
that the doctor said to him
that there's no yeah right you can't
(01:37:50):
afford to have hope with yeah yeah so
despite what's going on
all you can think about is the fact that
he's got some feeling that
the cut on his hand is painful
it's cleverly written and then he says it
can't happen of course it
can't that proves proves this
is all a dream yeah right right so that
(01:38:11):
just reinforces whatever he thinks about
yeah he thinks about that and what i can
justify in things yeah but atriok
explains to atriaran
like what happened basically and and yeah
because he he's in love with
(01:38:33):
her so he went out to try and
find her and and and then she she
basically didn't want still
didn't want to tell him but did
yeah uh he doesn't like that atriaran is
not letting him uh kill
thomas so you know and and
(01:38:54):
even has a go at her saying you know your
mother would um yeah but she just
reiterates the oath of
peace one more time and then um yeah
she's like really sad and says alas for
the young in the world
(01:39:14):
you know why is the burden of uh hating
ill so hard to bear and
then she says alina my daughter
i see what you have done i understand it
is a brave deed worthy of
praise and pride forgive me
that i cannot be with you in this uh
trial yeah so um does she what is she
(01:39:40):
understanding um the same
thing that i don't know uh maybe we
understood earlier on that
that lina was kind of sacrificing
herself for the for the good of the uh
nation by not having told
her immediately yeah i think so
yeah is that what it is yeah must be i've
(01:40:02):
underlined that section as well
and then trioc says does he go unpunished
and she goes on to talk
about the peril in the Land let
the lords punish him the matter is beyond
me trioc remember your
oath so she's sacrificing
as well for the good of the Land her
(01:40:26):
anger and as a mother of my goodness
she does just a little further on mention
that you know she she says almost kind of
you know between her teeth that she hopes
that the lords punish him
yeah she prays i pray that
the lords will punish punish yeah and all
(01:40:51):
the while tc is like uh
you know punkly nerves did
regenerate in the Land so he's getting
better but the Land is
getting diseased yeah yeah there's a
i mean i'm not saying that one that
(01:41:12):
there's a causal
relationship but i mean in a sense
because i mean there was some harmony
that has been shattered now
i mean quite apart from lina
just you know his his arrival is you know
brings about a sense of you
know end times or whatever
you know yeah yeah it does it does and
(01:41:34):
we've also got that phrase
that he will either save or damn
the Land right right and then there's his
raping of lina which you
know in a in a harmonious place
like that would just not happen certainly
not in the stone down where
she lives no uh and and so i
(01:41:56):
mean yeah so so there's Desecration
there's there's that kind of you know
poison or just disease and
at the same time thomas his own body is
is kind of healing yeah uh
as a result of the Land yeah
yeah and um i guess who knows what power
(01:42:19):
and energy he he took from
lina that he wasn't aware
of being a taker of but he's angry he
says why should i why should
i go none of this matters i
don't give a damn about your precious
Land and she says buy the
seven so i'm like seven what
yeah yeah that must be like the biggest
(01:42:41):
curse like you know yeah yeah right
she's having none of it and he sees i'm
gonna drag you if i have to
i mean she must like uh there's a bit
where he he asks for a
bandage and and i mean she
(01:43:05):
she really despises him now yeah i mean
she and and his behavior is
i mean it's easy to see why
you know uh it's it's it would be
despised and and is kind of despicable it
is despicable i mean
you know yeah yeah whatever whatever
(01:43:28):
background and things i mean
yeah i mean certainly it's it's
maybe also an indication of how much uh
humanity was kind of knocked
out of him in however long it
was between discovering uh that uh he was
a leper and remember how it
came about writing that that
(01:43:49):
crappy second novel yeah because he sat
in his heart and he just
wrote and wrote and wrote and
wrote and wrote and ignored all the pain
and that that brought it
about and then when he went back
and read the novel it was so shit he just
burned it along with the
first one but yeah first first
(01:44:09):
novel was a best seller so and we also
don't know much about his
life up until that point
what kind of a person he was he's got a
young son uh six-year-old
or something uh his wife
jone yeah she she seemed happy enough to
(01:44:33):
stay with him until the
point where she realized
what the future was going to be so i
think roger was the son i think he was a
bit younger than six
at that point right still like enough
toddler yeah but i think uh
a person who's strong enough
to make a decision like that would be
(01:44:55):
strong enough to make a
decision to leave had he been
a complete asshole yeah so i mean that
makes sense so yeah certainly i mean uh
it seems like leprosy
or the experience of it and the and the
dealing of it uh was at the expense of
most of his humanity
(01:45:17):
yeah right uh and yeah and that's
certainly at display uh at the
moment and gives the sense of
being despicable yep i would agree with
that so that's it the
chart's done she's going to drag
him to revelstone by hooker by crook and
he then picks up triok's
(01:45:38):
knife which triok had embedded
into the earth that's a sharp blade made
of one piece of stone and it's sharp
enough to shave with
he cuts a hair off his
arm to test the blade
and remember that shaving for Covenant is
one of his rituals one
(01:46:00):
of his survival rituals
yeah and they head off he with triok's
blade in his belt and
started after ati arun so they're
back on the move but i would expect their
relationship to be very
different from here on
in now that she knows right but triok
(01:46:22):
disappeared he just ran off after after
ati arun had reprimanded
him and forbade him from killing Covenant
so who knows if we'll see
him again but he's run off with
this tail between his legs well i mean
you know he'll at least be good for
(01:46:43):
comforting leaner i mean
interesting the knife a stone a knife or
a stone that's as sharp as
that can't imagine it but yeah
yeah
i don't think there's anything else i
(01:47:06):
wanted to refer back to
there was just one thing i've
written here which wouldn't be relevant
to you but to anyone
who's read brandon sanderson's
stormlight archive which has an oath
packed of its own so i'm
just wondering how much these
fantasy authors borrow from each other
this one is the oath of peace
(01:47:26):
and there was a mention of the blood
guard at one point in
this chapter which we didn't
Land upon we haven't met the blood guard
but i think that's twice
they've been mentioned now
no it's not oh here we are yeah when
(01:47:46):
we're talking about the ranahen
it says that no ranahen has been written
saved by lord or blood guard
since the age began so that's another
race that we haven't come
across yet but they've been
mentioned a couple of times along with
the giants and the ramen or
(01:48:07):
the ramen i'm not sure how you
would pronounce that the horse people
right so it's a dense chapter there's relationship
changes there's the revelation of the
rape trioc appears
for the first time we're
introduced to the ravers as a concept and
(01:48:29):
we get all of the the
history of the lords
that ati anan explains to Covenant so
there's a lot in this
chapter actually i think we did the
right thing just concentrating on one
what are you thinking any predictions of the
what you thinking any predictions still
too early yeah uh i had wondered um
(01:48:52):
before i figured out that
everybody knew that maybe uh she would go
on to have his child who lina yeah
hmm that's right yeah interesting but
(01:49:13):
yeah in terms of what
may come about yeah right
so we've got a long way
to go a lot of walking
i did mention the river which is why
they're not taking a
direct route but rather they're
looking at using the soles ease to use
(01:49:35):
the river as a means
of traversing the Land
it's easier walking because he has a go
at her saying why didn't
you take the other route and
she said well where did we get up there
it's going to be much
easier yeah yeah so let's look
at what we're going to cover for next
(01:49:56):
time chapter nine
jahannam stops yeah 115 up to 141
yeah yeah let's just stick with the one
chapter yeah and it sounds very much like
the arabic word for heaven right very
(01:50:19):
good studying this with the linguist is
quite an interesting idea well you've
been yourself yeah fair enough
there's no russian
references or influence at all
at least none that i've noticed see me
(01:50:40):
not doing clockwork or
anything funny you should say that
i have it right here on my desk i'm just
showing it to the camera
for those listeners who
can't see what we're doing so i'm going
to be reading that again this month
which i'm looking forward to right then
(01:51:01):
right then okay so see you in heaven
nice one so yeah if any of you listeners
have got some feedback for
us just drop it in let us know
what you think of the chapter so far if
you're going to stick with
it i presume you are because
(01:51:21):
you have done after chapter seven you're
still here so let us know
what you think if you're
enjoying it if you're looking forward to
the rest of the story as it
unfolds and we'll see you back
here yeah and just just to say that um
for me at least this is the
first time i'm doing it so uh
uh be gentle but i mean feel free to to
(01:51:44):
say what you uh feel about
the style of uh interaction and
any improvements or any any feedback
things like that feel free
yeah we'll take it on board
right barge good to see you my friend
okay comes right yo see
you next time bye then bye
(01:52:05):
bye just a wee addendum we are now
publishing on our own url so
if you go to the Unbelievers.co
that's .co that's where we're publishing
and obviously you know
where we're publishing because
you're listening to it but it's going out
on all of the podcast
platforms and on youtube so i'm
(01:52:27):
putting it onto my cams campbell reeds
channel on youtube i'll
put a link in the show notes
if youtube's your thing and you want to
support us there it'd be a
good place to go and you can
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(01:52:48):
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(01:53:09):
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would be amazing thank you
Hey everybody welcome to another episode
of The Unbelievers. I'm Cams, your host—an
Unbeliever, and I'm joined by ... Yeah, Barge
the Unbeliever, so two Unbelievers
together talking about another Unbeliever
Thomas Covenant right and I wonder how
(01:00:23):
many Unbelievers there are in the
audience who are like me on the journey
for the first time and who are sticking
with it yeah that would be good to know
yeah I mean right yeah we're at this kind
of juncture where I mean Thomas
(01:00:44):
Covenant is convinced he's in a
dream, but is he? And yeah, let's find
out, and we've also just crossed the
Rubicon this is the point where we might
have lost a few listeners having just
(01:01:07):
finished chapter 7 where the violation
scene takes place and I know from having
seen online over the years on Kevin's
Watch forum and places like that that's
the scene that makes a lot of people
quit so if you're still with us nice one
glad to have you we're going to get
(01:01:28):
some of the consequences now and it's an
interesting a kind of journey to go
along with a hero that is that is
displaying behavior that I mean is
pretty despicable so so it's interesting
(01:01:50):
to see how this develops I mean yeah
that's let's let's go with it an anti
hero I guess you would call him well at
the moment so we're in chapter 8 the
title of which is the Dawn of the Message.
so we're covering just one chapter today
(01:02:10):
we start where we finished her
Covenant has just done the deed he's
violated young Lena she's run off and
then he falls asleep I guess yeah so I
mean he saw his lust takes over he
(01:02:30):
violates and then he vomits right she so
he he he gets rid of something and then
there's this sense of the river taking it
away right and then he wakes up the
next morning and he actually feels really
(01:02:53):
good he's just aware that he's
had an orgasm and how how it's like
almost impossible yeah heart heart
rending so precious that he would have
been willing to coin his soul to make
make such things part of his real life
(01:03:14):
for a long moment of
joy he re-experienced
that sensation then he remembered that to
get it he had hurt Lena right so I'm
yeah so then what does he what does he do
like so he plans to flee right because
(01:03:37):
his gradually Covenant panic receded
after a last look around he began to
prepare for what lay ahead of him and
then he decides just to suppress the
memory and keep moving survive and you
know all that stuff he just doesn't
(01:03:58):
want to go back to what he did so his
first kind of action is to put himself
through a thorough VSE virtual
surveillance of extremities which is his
ritual to check whether he's been hurt or
is in any danger yeah and he finds
(01:04:23):
that actually he's not going to be
running away because just there in the
banks is Atiaran before that he jumps in
the water doesn't he he jumps into the
river and feels the seductive pool of the
(01:04:43):
water urging him to float off under
the blue skies but he doesn't he washes
himself and that's when he sees Atiaran
and when he comes back out from having
ducked his head under the water and
then I mean what must be going through
(01:05:04):
his head like this you know and what's
what's happening and he tries to figure
out she doesn't say much he says she
basically tells him to come along and get
dry yeah and so he assumes that she
doesn't know which is a surprise to him
(01:05:28):
she even then tells him that Lena told
Trell that he was here so basically he's
surprised that there's no accusation no
and so he he kind of tests it a bit
further and he he asks her if she
(01:05:50):
actually saw Lena that's right yeah and
at the errands says that she didn't and
she went to spend a night with a friend
and just shouted out from outside as she
passed the house so she's come to take
him to Revelstone right but I mean yeah
(01:06:11):
and so so carbon basically figures out
from that that she hasn't been told and
that what Lena is doing is is to
sacrifice herself yeah in a sense and
because she thinks that he's he's very
confident and and rather than as a word
(01:06:34):
draw attention to revenge or something
she wants him to get on with his mission
I guess yeah and so she's willing to do
that so because of his status she's
sacrificing herself for the good of the
Land yeah and and so then then I hear
(01:06:55):
and says about needing to guide him to
Lord's keep yeah so we're told then
about the fact that the cave white has
found the Staff of Law so we're being
that's been reintroduced as the theme of
the opening of the novel so we're
talking about Drool Rockworm and he says
(01:07:16):
I gather he doesn't really know how to
use it somehow the Lords have got to get
it away from him so that's that's the
mission and then Atiaran explains that
Revelstone is 300 leagues
which I had to look up so it's basically
(01:07:36):
900 miles right—1500 km—yeah so how does
Covenant know how far a league is without
having to have it explained to
us or does he well I guess I mean it was
it was fairly common parlance no I
(01:07:57):
mean when I looked it up it said the
leagues kind of differed in
terms of the distance he's from he's from
Haven Farm in America so his first
question should have been no how far is
that in miles then I see maybe he just
(01:08:17):
accepts it's a long way and just goes
along with it yeah and and I guess is
his yeah I mean his mind isn't
particularly clear at the moment no I
mean you'll come up against distance
later on yeah so we get another mention
here of the Ranyhyn, which are the
(01:08:39):
horses of the Land and they cannot go to
them for help she says the Ramen have
little countenance for the affairs of
the Land and no Ranyhyn has been ridden
safe by Lord or Bloodguard since the
age began so we must walk Thomas Covenant
so the Ranyhyn are different
(01:09:01):
from regular horses I take it because
there is I remember reference to horses
is that is that correct yeah they were
mentioned earlier somewhere and so were
the ramen who are the the ones who look
after the Ranyhyn and the I can't
remember what it said previously but they
(01:09:24):
were definitely brought up before
right so what's happening so she's she's
basically presenting herself as the
guide and she asks him if if he trusts
her to guide him because she she says I
(01:09:45):
failed in the Loresraat, yeah I wanted to
ask you about that you've got some German
knowledge is that rat anything like the
German 'raat' well yeah exactly or maybe
Dutch you know or Scandinavian but the
same kind of thing that's so yeah kind of
(01:10:09):
advisory place so you know a municipal
building or official type kind of you
know policymaking building type thing
right I think this is more like an
academy of some sort right where one
studies the lore which we get to in a
bit and the big info dump about the
(01:10:31):
lore yeah so she's quite down on herself
she doesn't see herself as
having enough status to be his guide
because she failed and she also has a
feeling that he knows more than he's
letting on and she accuses him of that
when he starts talking about the message
(01:10:53):
that he was given again and she says I
think you are too eager to know my
ignorance but then she goes on to talk
to him about the history of the Land
basically what she
learned at the Loresraat
who the Lords are and she mentions the
(01:11:13):
Ravers for the first time I don't
believe they've been mentioned before the
spies the Giants know the Giants are
the ones who built Revelstone for Loric
High Lord Loric—yeah, the Giants are the
(01:11:37):
good guys huh I mean doesn't it say that
they weren't affected by the desolation
oh we come to that later yeah yeah yeah
it wasn't Lorik was it Damelon it was
Lord Damelon because he's known as Lord
Damelon Giantfriend so he was
Lord of Revelstone when the ordnance the
(01:11:58):
Giants built Revelstone out of the
rock for Damelon that gets mentioned
later but here we've got the Ravers the
spies of the Gray Slayer, they cannot die
well he yet lives they have no bodies of
their own and their spirits wander until
they find living beings which they can
(01:12:20):
master thus they appear as animals or
humans as chance allows corrupting the
life of the Land so that's yeah she also
mentions that they've got to pass Mount
Thunder which is a pretty dangerous place
(01:12:41):
yeah that's where the Covenant was
summoned to when he first appeared in
Kiril Threndor which is Mount Thunder
that's where the cave was when Drool
summoned them with the staff of law and
we also see Kevin's Watch we get another
glance of Kevin's Watch but this time
(01:13:04):
from below a four thousand feet indeed
it's mentioned yeah so I've underlined
that just to make
note of the height of it
right so they've set off Thomas Covenant to
convince he's still in a dream
(01:13:26):
he's kind of
uh shamed and relieved that she hasn't
discovered his uh his secret and his
night's work in his face as it says but
he's he's feeling so there is that guilt
(01:13:47):
but for the time being he seems to escape
any uh particular consequences yeah um
and uh also as they set off he realizes
that this is gonna this
is when he realizes that
it's it's a massive distance and that she
doesn't know that he's a leper yeah so
(01:14:11):
I don't remember if you ever mentioned it
to her but even if he had she wouldn't
have known what it meant yeah so we're
reminded again of the
Desecration just as we go past
Kevin's watch he's reminded of
his summoning and she explains about
(01:14:31):
Kevin Landwaster once again high lord and
wielder of the staff
direct descendant of Berek Halfhand in
the last battle against the Gray Slayer
Desecration the end of all things in the
Land for many generations
so this is the it's the most important
(01:14:51):
part in the Land's history
really when it all changed
and that's kind of the starting point
from the Land's point of view
that's led to where we are now
right so uh she's also beginning to get
some misgivings about being
(01:15:12):
followed well she says yeah I feel
something wrong upon our
pastest day um and he's also got
misgivings kind of thing but they have
pangs of guilt yeah uh but
she she does say that she feels
they're being followed perhaps but anyway
(01:15:36):
um yeah and then
she's giving him the lore
yeah so we get an info dump here which is
another dense couple of
pages with the Land's history
so yeah we get told about Berwick's son
Damelon giant friend and
(01:15:58):
his son Lorik Vile Silencer so
these are all lords and it did mention
somewhere that Kevin was
lord for a thousand years
when he stood at head of the council so
that's a surprise
piece of information that
the lifespan of these inhabitants of the
(01:16:18):
Land is not like it is for
us um and also there's a sense
I mean for for anybody who hasn't read
this before like that's
okay so uh like Berwick
half-hand is like the father of this
entire kind of uh ancestry yeah it's like
(01:16:39):
the noble line almost
right um and he was the one who defeated
the grace layer or the
darkness or the cloud or
whatever it was however they described it
after the king and queen
of the Land had divided
(01:17:01):
and the king had been corrupted by the
cloud or the darkness
and Berwick was the queen's champion and
he defeated the darkness I
see so this is chronologically
comes after that right yeah yeah so right
right right so interesting
(01:17:21):
so then uh um Kevin's rule
was the or Kevin's whatever you know
steward chip was the uh time when the
lore was gathered into
the seven wards is it yeah so he's I
guess the fourth in line so
(01:17:41):
we've got Berwick we've got
Damalon we've got Lorik and then we've
got Kevin so that could be
four thousand years or more
if Kevin was lord for a thousand years
right so basically there was this span of
(01:18:01):
uh time where there was as it were
positive development in
the Land and then the lore
yeah the lore was collected um it says
that he gathers up the lore
when he sees the first hints
that the ancient shadow was alive right
that's when he gathered
all his lore into seven wards
(01:18:24):
so I'm I guess for four thousand years or
however long it was after
Berwick defeated the shadow
by calling the fire lions from mount
thunder when he swore
an oath to the Land then
this the shadow must have been recovering
(01:18:45):
or hiding or I don't
know a bit like Voldemort
that's what it makes me think of for some
reason uh right or never completely
defeated or whatever
I mean um or maybe it's not possible to
do that who knows yeah um
but it right so then during
(01:19:08):
this as it were golden age so to speak uh
uh then as as the hint of
the end of the golden age of
period was coming then Kevin kind of gets
all the knowledge
together in in the form of the
the the lore yeah right which gets
divided into seven parts
seven wards yes and then hidden
(01:19:30):
and hidden yeah so that the knowledge
would not pass from the Land even if he
and the old lords fell
right so then whatever he was kind of uh
sensing appears in the
form of a Trojan horse huh
(01:19:50):
um the gray slayer rose up in the guise
of a friend yes and he
gets a seat in the council
yeah
yeah
(01:20:12):
right but that's that's that the poison's
in and boom yeah I mean end of peace yeah
so then he gets betrayed and that'll be
when they set off the
Ritual of Desecration
so it's Kevin who does that with the
staff of law and it's at that
(01:20:33):
point that the staff of law is
lost and I see the gray slayer then gets
to have dominion over the
destroyed Land I suppose
right but it also said then this is where
we learned that the giants
rock brothers of the people of the Land
(01:20:53):
had survived the Ritual
of Desecration yeah exactly
and it was they who had stewardship over
the first ward yeah right
and they swore to master
the law that they might heal the Land and
to master themselves that
they would not fall into
the anger and despair which made which
(01:21:15):
made Kevin his own worst
foe yeah right so they are
um they're kind of guardians of sorts and
and um in the period after
the Desecration then they are part of the
revival yeah well they
(01:21:36):
return with the first ward
and they under the the lordship of no
back in before the
Desecration when they they were
building revelstone for damelon giant
(01:21:56):
friend and revelstone is the
seat of the council of lords
the council of lords the ageless castle
city which they had driven out of the
rock of the mountain
for high lord damelon as surety of the
bond between them actually
yeah so this is when they return
(01:22:19):
the first ward of Kevin's Lore for he
had trusted it to the
giants before the last battle
and the people accepted that ward and
consecrated themselves swearing earth
friendship and loyal
to the power and beauty of the Land so we
don't know how much time has
passed since the Desecration
when berek forms this noble line or
(01:22:45):
whatever it is this council of lords
right uh you mean before the first
Desecration no there's only one
Desecration also the Kevin
Desecration is the only one yeah so
before berek was the big
battle it was the big battle yeah
big right i see and then the giant
(01:23:06):
survived the Desecration which was the
Kevin Desecration yes
right right so we don't know how long
after this Desecration
we're in in the current time
that's what you're saying yeah right yeah
okay yeah right uh we do
get a sense of the scope of
(01:23:27):
the lord which i thought was was really
well described no yeah um
so that from the beginning of
the second era up until now the lords
have been working with only the first
ward and they haven't
mastered that yeah and there are seven
and it says here that the
(01:23:49):
lord is a deep matter not
mastered yet despite all the years and
effort that have been given
to it the chiefest problem
is translation i really like that for the
language of the old yeah
for the old lords was not like
ours and the worlds which is simple at
one place are difficult at
another yeah the words and after
(01:24:09):
translation the law must then be
interpreted and the skills to
use it must be learned yeah so
there's a lot being lost and all the
knowledge in the laws rat is just one
seventh of the whole
yeah and it's not all of that seventh
either right because
(01:24:31):
they haven't mastered it
right right so all they really have it
says the easiest of
translation was the war lore
arts of battle and defense
so there's a war word which i guess is
the army of lords keep but
there have been no wars in our
time which is interesting because we're
(01:24:54):
talking maybe four
thousand years no since Kevin till
now we don't know how long that is we
don't know how long that is exactly but
they haven't had any
wars so what's lord foul been up to and
all of that time we don't
know there's been a time of
(01:25:14):
peace yeah and there's a bit where
Atiaran, she's
talking about well she's talking
about the Lore in terms of you know what
what she learned in her
experience at the Loresraat,
and she she then goes on to say why she
gave up and and that was
(01:25:36):
interesting because it's
almost like she gave up because she
couldn't bear to feel or
experience the the dark intensity
it says over here, "that which I learned
made my heart quell when
the Lorewardens led me
(01:25:57):
to see just a little way into the Despite
of the Gray Slayer that i
could not bear and so I broke
my devotion and returned." So that's
a theme of this is the Ritual of
Desecration is described
as having happened because because of
(01:26:18):
Kevin's despair that he
he gave into the despair
and Atiaran is not willing to do that as
the feeling i'm getting here
that to to learn of the despair is to is
perhaps too much for one to take
it's risky but they also have knowledge
(01:26:41):
of the Ritual of
Desecration which Kevin would not have
had at that time because there had never
been one oh i see so
now the the Lore wardens
are conscious of what it can lead to
i mean one thing that that occurs to me
(01:27:02):
is you know uh uh a newbie
to all this is like okay so
Kevin invoked the Desecration so i mean
that's so he called it upon
the Land and uh that must have
been uh as it were a lesser evil than the
alternative i would
(01:27:23):
imagine otherwise why do it
uh unless of course uh Kevin like why
would you rule you know like
uh you know like a good guy
for a thousand years and then turn so
rather than the rather
than allow the grace layer to
take the Land he would rather destroy it
(01:27:46):
uh well uh that seems to
be a possibility then i mean
because you know the grace layer uh so
the trojan horse came in in
the form of a friend right
uh and then became a war lord and and and
then the poison was in the system yeah uh
he had sensed that already because he had
(01:28:08):
he had done the prep by
kind of uh putting the
law together and then hiding it yeah um
so uh he then must have made the
connection that this is
this is what i sensed coming into being
right so so yeah to my mind
anyway the Desecration then
(01:28:28):
sounds like a a certainly a lesser of the
two and some sort of
maybe protective move yeah
particularly given the fact that he's
secured the Lore for future retrieval
right right right right
and uh it's not clear whether he knew the
(01:28:48):
giants would survive um but
i mean he gave it to them and
maybe uh yeah maybe he had a sense of
that and maybe maybe he even
forewarned them so that they
could who knows yeah yeah but it's also
his desperation at that
time wouldn't have been
dissimilar to bearecks despair when the
(01:29:12):
fire lines came to his rescue
because he was defeated as he stood on
the hillside and then he
swore his oath to the earth
in return for aid from the
fire lines of mount thunder
so he took a different route although i
(01:29:34):
suppose he didn't have an
alternative other than his own
destruction but that's it that's the big
difference right it's
his individual destruction
isn't it because i mean the battle's lost
he's fled it's just him no but
no but the Land would have been lost
(01:29:58):
right yeah no no he did
know that when he took the oath
because the rock said to him that uh you
will have a friend and
yeah all right earth friend
i think but he didn't he didn't he didn't
i mean he did it yeah
exactly this is like yeah either
you do this or you die yeah so yeah okay
(01:30:20):
do it um whereas uh with
Kevin then it's it's a far
more considered thing yeah it was
prepared for wasn't it uh
right so in the story where are we
then so she's she's giving him this all
this this lore that we've been
(01:30:40):
discussing yeah yeah and then
she she questions him about his message
and he says i'm not your
bloody berek because she seems
to think that he knows more than he's
letting on so he reiterates
his message to her and explains
because she's surprised how he knows who
the current lord is
because she doesn't yeah yeah
(01:31:01):
so she's like yeah you taking the piss to
him as Covenant he's like
no no here's the message i
was given again and yeah he says it word
for word and during the message it is
told to us that high
lord prothel son of dwillian yeah so
we've got that yeah and it's
interesting to see the effect
(01:31:22):
of just uttering those words on
everything around it's like uh you know
the bird stopped chirping
and and um it's it has just uh just
uttering the words yeah it does yeah um
and the stream appeared
motionless right exactly yeah it's like
(01:31:44):
poison or actually no it
doesn't and not necessarily
but it it has uh an effect um for an
instance complete silence
surrounded him the birds were
as silent as if they had been stricken
out of the sky and the stream
appeared motionless yeah and
then ati arran gaped and cries out melon
(01:32:06):
curian abatha which have
underlined yeah no explanation
is given do not speak it until you must
so it's kind of like not
saying the the name of voldemort
out loud it's like an omen uh i guess and
that's that's i don't know
like saying whatever yeah
(01:32:27):
we hail mary's to cancel it out right
right right and then she
says to him you are close
to me thomas coverant i do not see you
and she means by the word
see as if she meant something
he did not understand and then when she
repeats it she says i do
not know whether you are well
(01:32:48):
or ill i that's when he gets his chance
to tell her yeah i'm
ill of course i'm a leper
and then she groaned as if he he had just
confessed to a crime then woe to the Land
for you have wild magic and can undo us
all and he's like what it's
just a ring what you on about
(01:33:09):
it's got no more wild magic than a rock
which is kind of the
wrong analogy isn't it because
in the Land the earth is the source of
all power is her response and yeah
there's a lot of jumping
about i mean like does she then know what
a leper is it's not made
clear but he does use the word
l so i suppose you can put two and two
(01:33:32):
together uh yeah right okay and then
right okay so basically
she she says she doesn't know whether
he's ill or well yes and
maybe because if that takes the
l box then then yeah we're doomed i see
yeah right right right and
then there's the follower
then there's this interesting kind of
(01:33:52):
play out of events yeah we get a bit of
an action scene here
a young man appears unmistakably a stone
downer so at this point
we don't know who he is
and he yells at him and calls him a raver
and this used to be funny to us because
yeah we read this in the 90s which for
(01:34:16):
those that don't know was a a period of
raves in scotLand anyway her in the uk as
opposed throughout was
when all the acid house was
kicking off and raves were a big thing so
this was written in the 70s
before any of that was a thing
but it was quite culturally amusing to us
all right so this guy
(01:34:38):
this this guy appears uh
at the isLand runs off and uh thomas
actually turns around and
stands to face the attacker
and he gets cut on his hands and that's
when at the isLand calls out triok
(01:34:59):
right so there's one thing though by
saying ravisher it's clear
that he knows what thomas
Covenant is done yes and there was a bit
where i wrote down earlier on when
ati arran says the bitter vehemence of
(01:35:21):
her reply surprised him so
when she said she's talking
about the lor's rat and i've written on
the side she knows says the bitter
vehemence of her reply
surprised him do you remind me that i am
of all people the least
worthy to talk of these matters
you thomas Covenant Unbeliever and white
gold wielder do you
reproach me so at that point i
(01:35:44):
thought maybe she knows just the way
she's throwing it back at
them but then we're it's
revealed that she didn't so yeah so uh
yeah so it it's clear that
she knows the attacker triok
so she says yeah so we know him too he
(01:36:04):
has been mentioned before
but only once and in passing
right he's a guy who fancies lina yeah we
did chat about that on a previous episode
she thought that she would be tied down
if she went with him
because he had no ambition whereas
she did right yes yes so he's obviously
in love with her and now
(01:36:25):
he wants to defend her honor
and kill Covenant and so he yeah he
slashes out and yeah um and
then ati alan remains him of his
oath of peace interesting and she yeah
she forbids him from uh
(01:36:46):
taking revenge and you might think
that thomas Covenant would be kind of
like mortified right but
he's totally oblivious yeah
it's it's well written this scene he's
like you know like he's
just fascinated that he's got
(01:37:08):
feeling in his fingers yeah they've
written that on the
side here still oblivious
when it's all going down and he's like
impossible can't happen nerves don't
regenerate after having
just been revealed as a as a rapist in
front of the victim's mother he's not
(01:37:28):
even aware of what's
going on so i suppose that gives a sense
of just how how powerful
this must feel to him as a leper
to have no hope because it is we do get a
callback of something
that the doctor said to him
that there's no yeah right you can't
(01:37:50):
afford to have hope with yeah yeah so
despite what's going on
all you can think about is the fact that
he's got some feeling that
the cut on his hand is painful
it's cleverly written and then he says it
can't happen of course it
can't that proves proves this
is all a dream yeah right right so that
(01:38:11):
just reinforces whatever he thinks about
yeah he thinks about that and what i can
justify in things yeah but atriok
explains to atriaran
like what happened basically and and yeah
because he he's in love with
(01:38:33):
her so he went out to try and
find her and and and then she she
basically didn't want still
didn't want to tell him but did
yeah uh he doesn't like that atriaran is
not letting him uh kill
thomas so you know and and
(01:38:54):
even has a go at her saying you know your
mother would um yeah but she just
reiterates the oath of
peace one more time and then um yeah
she's like really sad and says alas for
the young in the world
(01:39:14):
you know why is the burden of uh hating
ill so hard to bear and
then she says alina my daughter
i see what you have done i understand it
is a brave deed worthy of
praise and pride forgive me
that i cannot be with you in this uh
trial yeah so um does she what is she
(01:39:40):
understanding um the same
thing that i don't know uh maybe we
understood earlier on that
that lina was kind of sacrificing
herself for the for the good of the uh
nation by not having told
her immediately yeah i think so
yeah is that what it is yeah must be i've
(01:40:02):
underlined that section as well
and then trioc says does he go unpunished
and she goes on to talk
about the peril in the Land let
the lords punish him the matter is beyond
me trioc remember your
oath so she's sacrificing
as well for the good of the Land her
(01:40:26):
anger and as a mother of my goodness
she does just a little further on mention
that you know she she says almost kind of
you know between her teeth that she hopes
that the lords punish him
yeah she prays i pray that
the lords will punish punish yeah and all
(01:40:51):
the while tc is like uh
you know punkly nerves did
regenerate in the Land so he's getting
better but the Land is
getting diseased yeah yeah there's a
i mean i'm not saying that one that
(01:41:12):
there's a causal
relationship but i mean in a sense
because i mean there was some harmony
that has been shattered now
i mean quite apart from lina
just you know his his arrival is you know
brings about a sense of you
know end times or whatever
you know yeah yeah it does it does and
(01:41:34):
we've also got that phrase
that he will either save or damn
the Land right right and then there's his
raping of lina which you
know in a in a harmonious place
like that would just not happen certainly
not in the stone down where
she lives no uh and and so i
(01:41:56):
mean yeah so so there's Desecration
there's there's that kind of you know
poison or just disease and
at the same time thomas his own body is
is kind of healing yeah uh
as a result of the Land yeah
yeah and um i guess who knows what power
(01:42:19):
and energy he he took from
lina that he wasn't aware
of being a taker of but he's angry he
says why should i why should
i go none of this matters i
don't give a damn about your precious
Land and she says buy the
seven so i'm like seven what
yeah yeah that must be like the biggest
(01:42:41):
curse like you know yeah yeah right
she's having none of it and he sees i'm
gonna drag you if i have to
i mean she must like uh there's a bit
where he he asks for a
bandage and and i mean she
(01:43:05):
she really despises him now yeah i mean
she and and his behavior is
i mean it's easy to see why
you know uh it's it's it would be
despised and and is kind of despicable it
is despicable i mean
you know yeah yeah whatever whatever
(01:43:28):
background and things i mean
yeah i mean certainly it's it's
maybe also an indication of how much uh
humanity was kind of knocked
out of him in however long it
was between discovering uh that uh he was
a leper and remember how it
came about writing that that
(01:43:49):
crappy second novel yeah because he sat
in his heart and he just
wrote and wrote and wrote and
wrote and wrote and ignored all the pain
and that that brought it
about and then when he went back
and read the novel it was so shit he just
burned it along with the
first one but yeah first first
(01:44:09):
novel was a best seller so and we also
don't know much about his
life up until that point
what kind of a person he was he's got a
young son uh six-year-old
or something uh his wife
jone yeah she she seemed happy enough to
(01:44:33):
stay with him until the
point where she realized
what the future was going to be so i
think roger was the son i think he was a
bit younger than six
at that point right still like enough
toddler yeah but i think uh
a person who's strong enough
to make a decision like that would be
(01:44:55):
strong enough to make a
decision to leave had he been
a complete asshole yeah so i mean that
makes sense so yeah certainly i mean uh
it seems like leprosy
or the experience of it and the and the
dealing of it uh was at the expense of
most of his humanity
(01:45:17):
yeah right uh and yeah and that's
certainly at display uh at the
moment and gives the sense of
being despicable yep i would agree with
that so that's it the
chart's done she's going to drag
him to revelstone by hooker by crook and
he then picks up triok's
(01:45:38):
knife which triok had embedded
into the earth that's a sharp blade made
of one piece of stone and it's sharp
enough to shave with
he cuts a hair off his
arm to test the blade
and remember that shaving for Covenant is
one of his rituals one
(01:46:00):
of his survival rituals
yeah and they head off he with triok's
blade in his belt and
started after ati arun so they're
back on the move but i would expect their
relationship to be very
different from here on
in now that she knows right but triok
(01:46:22):
disappeared he just ran off after after
ati arun had reprimanded
him and forbade him from killing Covenant
so who knows if we'll see
him again but he's run off with
this tail between his legs well i mean
you know he'll at least be good for
(01:46:43):
comforting leaner i mean
interesting the knife a stone a knife or
a stone that's as sharp as
that can't imagine it but yeah
yeah
i don't think there's anything else i
(01:47:06):
wanted to refer back to
there was just one thing i've
written here which wouldn't be relevant
to you but to anyone
who's read brandon sanderson's
stormlight archive which has an oath
packed of its own so i'm
just wondering how much these
fantasy authors borrow from each other
this one is the oath of peace
(01:47:26):
and there was a mention of the blood
guard at one point in
this chapter which we didn't
Land upon we haven't met the blood guard
but i think that's twice
they've been mentioned now
no it's not oh here we are yeah when
(01:47:46):
we're talking about the ranahen
it says that no ranahen has been written
saved by lord or blood guard
since the age began so that's another
race that we haven't come
across yet but they've been
mentioned a couple of times along with
the giants and the ramen or
(01:48:07):
the ramen i'm not sure how you
would pronounce that the horse people
right so it's a dense chapter there's relationship
changes there's the revelation of the
rape trioc appears
for the first time we're
introduced to the ravers as a concept and
(01:48:29):
we get all of the the
history of the lords
that ati anan explains to Covenant so
there's a lot in this
chapter actually i think we did the
right thing just concentrating on one
what are you thinking any predictions of the
what you thinking any predictions still
too early yeah uh i had wondered um
(01:48:52):
before i figured out that
everybody knew that maybe uh she would go
on to have his child who lina yeah
hmm that's right yeah interesting but
(01:49:13):
yeah in terms of what
may come about yeah right
so we've got a long way
to go a lot of walking
i did mention the river which is why
they're not taking a
direct route but rather they're
looking at using the soles ease to use
(01:49:35):
the river as a means
of traversing the Land
it's easier walking because he has a go
at her saying why didn't
you take the other route and
she said well where did we get up there
it's going to be much
easier yeah yeah so let's look
at what we're going to cover for next
(01:49:56):
time chapter nine
jahannam stops yeah 115 up to 141
yeah yeah let's just stick with the one
chapter yeah and it sounds very much like
the arabic word for heaven right very
(01:50:19):
good studying this with the linguist is
quite an interesting idea well you've
been yourself yeah fair enough
there's no russian
references or influence at all
at least none that i've noticed see me
(01:50:40):
not doing clockwork or
anything funny you should say that
i have it right here on my desk i'm just
showing it to the camera
for those listeners who
can't see what we're doing so i'm going
to be reading that again this month
which i'm looking forward to right then
(01:51:01):
right then okay so see you in heaven
nice one so yeah if any of you listeners
have got some feedback for
us just drop it in let us know
what you think of the chapter so far if
you're going to stick with
it i presume you are because
(01:51:21):
you have done after chapter seven you're
still here so let us know
what you think if you're
enjoying it if you're looking forward to
the rest of the story as it
unfolds and we'll see you back
here yeah and just just to say that um
for me at least this is the
first time i'm doing it so uh
uh be gentle but i mean feel free to to
(01:51:44):
say what you uh feel about
the style of uh interaction and
any improvements or any any feedback
things like that feel free
yeah we'll take it on board
right barge good to see you my friend
okay comes right yo see
you next time bye then bye
(01:52:05):
bye just a wee addendum we are now
publishing on our own url so
if you go to the Unbelievers.co
that's .co that's where we're publishing
and obviously you know
where we're publishing because
you're listening to it but it's going out
on all of the podcast
platforms and on youtube so i'm
(01:52:27):
putting it onto my cams campbell reeds
channel on youtube i'll
put a link in the show notes
if youtube's your thing and you want to
support us there it'd be a
good place to go and you can
comment directly there on the podcast or
if you would like to help
us out just a little bit we
add a new podcast after all so one of the
(01:52:48):
most helpful things you
can do would be to go to your
pod catcher app of choice and leave us a
review and a star rating
if you i mean five obviously
would be amazing whatever you can do to
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gets some attention at the beginning so
(01:53:09):
that it can fall in front
of other people's ears so we
would really appreciate it if you would
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book and i know that you're
reading along with us if you've got this
far so we would appreciate
your support if you would
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