GRADUAL INTERVIEW SPOILER WARNING!   ..........   Spoilers - The Runes of the Earth Nathan R. Eddy:  Mr. Donaldson, You recently answered a question about Linden needing the Staff of Law in Runes. I'm the one who stirred up things on the Watch with regards to this issue. I hope you don't mind if I take your response as an opportunity to clarify my question. I agree that it is obvious why *you,* as the author, need Linden to get the Staff (it is linked to her thematically and literally, suiting both her role in the overall story arc as wells as her particular talents as a character). What I thought was absent from the text was an explicit description of Linden *herself* knowing why she needs it. After pages of debate, the best quote I've seen pertained to the exact issue you raised in your answer: that she needs power, but can't risk using the ring. Specifically, you had Linden say in Runes: "Maybe I can rescue him with wild magic, maybe I can't. But I can't do it without risking the Arch, and that's too dangerous. I need the Staff. Otherwise I might do enough harm to end the Earth." While this is indeed evidence that Linden has a specific reason for taking the great risks necessary to regain the Staff, I don't understand those reasons. For example, Covenant was apparently able to confront Foul in the 1st Chronicles without endangering the Arch. In addition, Linden is much more precise in her mastery of the ring than Covenant ever was (using it to heal Giants, Haruchai, to create a stable ceasure, etc.). One final source of confusion for me is your assertion that she wants the Staff to save the Land. Yet, in Runes, you give us the impression that Linden will risk anything--even the Land--in order to regain her son (hence the risky way she regains the Staff). Specifically, you wrote in Runes: "She had lost her son, and would dare any devastation to win him back. In her scales, he outweighed the life of worlds." Thus, I thought it was your purpose to use this as a source of tension and suspense, to turn our expectation of Linden once again being a "savior" (or at least a "healer") on its head by using her actions as an unintensonal source of danger. Can you help me sort this out? Thanks! Nathan. There seems to be a fair amount of confusion about this. You’re not the only one posting questions on the subject. And yet…I’m completely baffled. How is not obvious--from Linden’s POV, not mine--that she needs the Staff of Law? Let’s ignore the fact that Covenant *told* her she needs the Staff. Her driving goal is to rescue her son: a far more concrete and (in the context of the story) realistic objective than, say, defeating the Despiser. But LF has Jeremiah. She can’t expect to wrest her son free with a few harsh words and a meaningful glance. So she needs power: that’s a given. But she has power: white gold. You say her control over it is more precise than Covenant’s was. I say her ability to use it *at all* is more arduous and tenuous than his ever was (e.g. Esmer’s mere presence blocks it). (In the first trilogy, Covenant was inhibited by his Unbelief, not by anything inherent to his relationship with white gold.) You say “Covenant was apparently able to confront Foul in the 1st Chronicles without endangering the Arch.” I say, No, he destroyed the Illearth Stone. That’s not the same thing. I say Linden knows that wild magic tends to scale out of control; that every use of it makes it more difficult to control. And I say that wild magic is *exactly* the power LF *wants* his enemies to use against him (because of the threat to the Arch: part of Covenant’s triumph in the first trilogy is that he did NOT confront LF with wild magic directly). He wins if he can just get someone, anyone, to attack him hard enough with wild magic. And Linden is smart enough to know how dangerous her position is. Meanwhile she can see at least a theoretical possibility of recovering the Staff of Law. As other readers have pointed out, the Staff is known to be inadequate against Despite. But remember that Linden’s goal is to rescue Jeremiah, not defeat LF. (Not that she would *object* to defeating LF, or would refuse to do so if she got the chance. But for her that’s a secondary issue.) So. There’s a great power that suits her (she made it, after all), that she knows she can use effectively, that is inherently incapable of giving LF what he wants, and that she has good reason to think is essential to the Land’s survival (and I do not mean LF’s defeat: LF’s defeat and the Land’s survival are not automatically the same thing; but the Land *is* threatened by Falls, against which the Staff is the perfect defense). What sane person who shared her goals would *not* want to retrieve the Staff? And by the way: of *course* Linden wants to preserve, even save, the Land. That may not be her driving goal, but she does *care* about it. How could she not? (Incidentally, I stand by my nuclear bomb/ high-powered rifle analogy. White gold has the capacity to destroy everything: the Staff can be used with immense precision.) Of course, it’s possible--even likely--that the author failed to explain any of this clearly in “The Runes of the Earth.” <sigh> “Leaving out the obvious” is a problem which never ceases to bedevil me. And, I assume, other people in my position. (12/18/2006)