GRADUAL INTERVIEW SPOILER WARNING!   ..........   Spoilers - Fatal Revenant Matt Vomacka:  First off, sorry that this question is pretty much nitpick plot detail related, but I'm curious. Alright. This question pertains to the 7 words of earthpower. The newest word we got was "harad" which appropriately implies 1: Were the other words of power contained in the first or second wards? How did the lords know "Duroc Minas Mill Khabaal" but not know to put harad in between? 2: Am I right in thinking there's a very particular significance to us learning this penultimate word last, instead of the seventh word? Theomach says (included for other readers): "The sixth, harad, may be understood as a stricture against selfishness, tyranny, malice, or other forms of despair. It binds the speaker to make no use of Earthpower which does not serve or preserve the munificence of creation." I found it interesting that the struggle with despair was what brought Mhoram to be able to defeat the giant raver (along with that them there krill). And how appropriately it seems to fit linden's problems as well. ROTE was already a great book, and FR has turned out even better (from my POV). Thank you so much for your writings. Now that I have another three years between FR and the next book, I'll have to chase down the Man Who Books, which are the only thing left I can use to fill a SRD gap XD I find questions like these difficult to reply to for more than one reason. I don't know why; but my readers seem to find it difficult to believe that a society suddenly scattered into a nomadic and arduous existence might conceivably lose a fair amount of knowledge and sophistication over the course of a thousand years. This concept seems so obvious to me that I don't know how to defend it. In addition, I often have a hard time responding to thematic questions while I'm still in the middle of a story. Although I know a lot about what I'm doing, I haven't had time to look back and reflect on what my subconscious imagination has dredged up; time that I've had in abundance since the first six "Covenant" books. So my best answer is: what I've done makes "gut" sense to me. I may have a great deal more to say on the subject years from now. At present, I'm mostly just trusting myself (at least on points like these). Still, it does seem to me that Kevin may have had powerful reasons for suppressing "harad". The rest of the Seven Words must surely have been found in the First and Second Wards, since they all occur in "The Illearth War". (12/21/2007)