In message <news:0orvt11uq0eq1d4vie07q1u12gb81s0ket@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
William Marnoch <william@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> enriched us with:
>
> On Thu, 19 Jan 2006 09:31:17 GMT, Troels Forchhammer
> <Troels@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>
[Eriondia books rated "Christian Morality: Harmless/Dangerous".
> Perhaps it means it is largely harmless but has a few dangerous
> elements.
LOL! 'Mostly harmless' . . .
>> tRoA, however, is given an unqualified "Dangerous" (I was also, as
>> one of the defenders of that book, thrilled to see it score 4/5 in
>> literary quality to opposee the 3/5 for the Eriondia books <G>).
>
> That makes no sense ;)
Actually I think it does. Despite the plot-weaknesses (in particular
with respect to the end) in tRoA, I think that it worked well to boil
the plot down to one book. Literarily the tighter structure in tRoA is,
IMO, an advantage.
<snip>
>> The other point I'm referring to is the natures of the two
>> prophecies -- they are not Good and Evil either, but rather
>> represent change vs. stasis. There's a nice passage (IDHTBIFOM) in
>> the Seeress of Kell as they're entering the cave where Belgarion
>> says something along the lines of 'It will change' to
>> Zandramas/the Dark Prophecy[*] where we get an exposition of this
>> philosophy.
[...]
>
> Unfortunately DE didn't really do the change vs. status argument
> justice. The 'dark' side was too obviously evil for it to be
> believable that it could possibly win.
You are right. The side of 'dark' is very obviously evil, and that
makes the moral 'message' (though I'm not sure it is a conscious
message by the author) that as long as 'we' are 'better' than 'them',
then everything's OK -- 'we' don't have to be 'good' on an absolute
scale to justify our actions.
I do think it's interesting, however, that DE doesn't invoke the usual
good vs. evil language openly (though, as you say, he does do it
implicitly -- half way, at least). I suppose that if one wishes, one
can read any of half a dozen different 'messages' into that little fact
:-)
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
It is useless to meet revenge with revenge: it will heal nothing.
- Frodo Baggins, 'LotR' (J.R.R. Tolkien)
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