GRADUAL INTERVIEW SPOILER WARNING!   ..........   Spoilers - The Runes of the Earth Michael Waltrip (San Diego):  Hello (again) Steve, I hope all is well. I've written here a few times, yet to be posted. (My impatience showing already!) Questions. About Time. To quote Captain Katherine Janeway (Star Trek: Voyager): "I hate temporal paradoxes. They give me such a headache." Playing with time, in that "go back" and alter the present by changing events in the past is a difficult concept to accept. That is, if possible, what is real? As this can repeatedly, infinitely, changing the same event. If you comment on the possibilities in the world TC Chronicles, i.e. White Gold being the only possible catalyst (and horror, now "wrong", "evil", or the "insane" has brought White Gold). How did Esmer summon a caesure? Or did he just guide one that one of his making? How do the Elohim transcend time, if they do not possess White Gold? On a different (more specific) subject. Triggering the Wild Magic. In "Runes" Lindon specifically separates the Ring from the Staff, and precludes their use with each other. Yet, the first two Chronicles always include some of power (Earthpower?) to trigger the Wild Magic response. Indeed, in Lord Foul's Bane, Bannor, after coersion, places Thomas Covenant's ring hand on the newly acquired Staff of Law to trigger the Wild Magic's summoning of the Fire Lion's to save the day. Later triggers, the High Wood, orcrist, despiser's venom, Illearth Stone, Illearth fragment (Stonemight). Could you comment on this? Thank you, Michael Waltrip San Diego First, your several time-disruption related questions. 1) Linden et al make a big point in "Runes" of not doing anything in the past that would alter the subsequent history of the Land (the known sequences of time). They can only take the Staff out of the past because a) it hasn't been used for over 3000 years, b) only the Waynhim even know where it is, and c) if Linden *doesn't* retrieve the Staff, its influence will eventually kill all the Waynhim and then the Staff will be left hidden in a cave no one can find, so it *still* won't have any affect on the Land's past. In addition, when Esmer introduces a potential alteration of the Land's past (the Demondim), Linden risks everyone's life in order to remove that danger. In other words, she is explicitly *not* "alter[ing] the present by changing events in the past." Much more on this in "Fatal Revenant." 2) It is explicitly stated in "Runes" that Esmer did *not* create a ceasure. Rather he drew a pre-existing one into the Verge of Wandering. 3) The point is made over and over again in "The Second Chronicles" that the Elohim are the opposite of Law. They exist independent of even the simplest rules (the rule of gravity leaps to mind, as does the rule of shape). So it seems inevitable to me that they would not be constrained by the Law of Time. They certainly aren't affected by ordinary distinctions of Life and Death. Wild magic can affect the structure of Time directly. The Elohim can simply ignore it. Second, about triggering the power of Covenant's ring. These are fantasy novels: they're all about metaphor and character. Keep in mind, please, that Covenant and Linden are different people. Naturally they'll have different relationships with power. And keep in mind also that Linden doesn't *fear* power the way Covenant does. She has no reason to (apart from the reasons she's heard from other people): he has plenty of reason. So he is inhibited in ways that she is not. (That Covenant is restrained by inhibition rather than necessity is demonstrated by his ability to heal himself while he is being translated to the Land at the beginning of "The Wounded Land.") No, Linden's on-going dilemma in "The Last Chronicles" is that she comes to possess two instruments of great power which are at best divergent and at worst mutually contradictory; and that she has a *freer* access to both than Covenant ever did. Hence the very real danger that she may destroy herself before she ever gets around to fighting the Despiser and saving the Land. (06/26/2005)