Others' Island (spoilers all books incl RWC)

['thul]

These beings seriously doubt that. If they had been, there would have been at least a few of them present in the out islands together with her. Also, all her knowledge of the skill came from the six duchies, the others/abominations would have been quite capable of giving her aid with creating a memory stone dragon, something she had great trouble with.

[fool-ish]

These beings seriously doubt that. If they had been, there would have been at least a few of them present in the out islands together with her. Also, all her knowledge of the skill came from the six duchies, the others/abominations would have been quite capable of giving her aid with creating a memory stone dragon, something she had great trouble with.

Aye, I suppose so. Was just a thought. I'm gonna shut up now until I've finished SoD and as I intend to read Tawny Man again, maybe until I've finished that too. This is the first time I've read the nine books in chronological order, so looking forward to one or two lightbulb moments!

[Farseer]

You know the problem with being here on thePlenty so often over a fairly long period of time? I do know that we have talked about it a couple of times but I am too frightened to respond to most questions we've covered before, like this one, because I might totally contradict (several times!) whatever I've said on the subject/s before!

I think I initially thought that the Others had been in the employ of the PW. It may certainly be one theory as to why they have managed to survive while both Elderlings and dragons have near vanished over the years?

I think I may have even given the PW as a possible reason for their odd request for gold in return for their seeing/prophecies eg gold coins are placed on the tongue of an Other, such as what happened with Kennit right at the beginning of SoM, and I thought that the Others may have passed this gold on to the PW to furnish her destruction-of-the-world plans. She had to buy expensive Skill scrolls from Regal etc with something?

I also think I may have considered her due to the iron bars that kept She Who Remembers imprisoned (the ones that Wintrow removed allowing her escape). In some way I felt (and still have a niggle about it!) that there may be a link with those bars of iron with the ironworks near Forge, and maybe even the Elderling ruins in the wider region of Forge/Buck. I think I may have included that I'm not sure if it's only coincidence that Forge was also the first town to be Forged en masse and that Fitz chose to settle near there (though I think I recall that the 'thul beings believed that Forge as a get-away-from-the-world option would afford Fitz and Nightyeyes more privacy as people no longer wanted to go to the area).

Of course there is always the fact that the PW is not the true White Prophet. Did she need the farseeing of SWR to help see what was to come, or could she see certain aspects by herself eg that she saw in all times that Fitz always killed her once she'd done away with Beloved? That she ends up on Aslevjal, that is said to have a female, black-haired oracle, is interesting as Others Island, too, is said to have a female, black-haired oracle (have chatted about that all over the place, I think! ). Maybe she had an interest in both locations?

The more we go along though, I think I believe less in an alliance between the PW and the Others. A little niggle in me believes that we may yet discover that the Others are actually like the many other abomination-like characters that we have met in the RotE thus far eg Thick, the Tattooed, the children marked by the Rain Wilds who should have been exposed when young, Pecksies etc. Ones who seem less, or who are looked down on by society, have this way of flipping things upside down and eventually prove to be more than worthy and even heroic. Maybe they have, or will in future, performed some deed/s that will require the dragons to look at them from a different perspective? They will be made to realise that the Others are not the Abominations they thought them to be?

I wonder if the Others are not possibly charged with protecting the artworks of the Elderlings...maybe even for future Elderlings should Elderlings ever return to the world? Like protecting the Elderling past as well as the Elderling future? As far as we can tell (?), the Others are unaware that Elderlings have returned...though one has to wonder what they thought when they realised that Fitz and Dutiful were able to come and go via the off-shore Skill Pillar and did not need to come via boat anchored near the opposite shore and over the ground memory stone path (or at least I *believe* it is constructed of ground memory stone) through their magic-imbued forest?

As the things that wash up on the Treasure Beach appear to prophecy a future (much like other pieces such as Althea's egg from Amber and Wintrow's stained-glass window etc), possibly the Others go one step further and even protect the future itself so that it happens as has been prophecied within the pieces? Of course, the events that have taken place as prophecied by the pieces have only seemed to have taken place for those those who have kept the items (Fitz - Rooster Crown feathers, Etta - baby with serpent tail, Dutiful - the Narcheska figurine, Wintrow etc) and not so much by those who left them behind/had their items stored in the alcoves? In this, maybe the Others do have a sinister intent in that they do not want events to occur and thus they keep them from taking place by keeping the artworks on the island? The events not having been able to occur, maybe this has kept time's wheel within it's current rutted path? Along with most of the other items, though Kennit did find a figurine of Etta, he did eventually return it. While he was with Etta and did have a child with her, and she did love him, he was not the one who ended up with her. Instead, it was Wintrow...at least in the sense that he is with Etta now and Kennit is dead.

I just don't know. Despite the fact that Fitz was repelled by the magic of the Others' path and forest, just as he was by the magic within the Liveship that he and Nighteyes came across while they were in Bingtown or even the magic/Wit within the simulacra in the Stone Garden, the Others do seem to have helped Kaven Ravenlock (loving that black hair connection by the way! ), who went to Others' Island and returned in his minstrel-like fashion? The fact that he sounds minstrel-y, even kind of White Prophet-y to a certain degree with his true songs of the future that were told in twisted rhymes (I think?) links him more to Elderlings and dragons than anything else? Leaving the path and entering into deep into the territory of the Others may even provide an experience similar to drowning in memories? What ever they did to Kaven, they certainly didn't seem to have harmed him, and let him leave rather than imprison him?

The Others...I'm looking forward to getting back to a LST re-read one day not too far away...so many mysteries to dig into!

ps Nothing with our Tangle leader is 'obvious' I don't think! She's a tricky fish!

['thul]

you forget one rather important thing with your thoughts on the iron bars... She Who Remembers has been imprisoned on others' island for generations, since not long after the cataclysm that led to the fall of dragonkind.

[Valarya]

Forgive me if this has been brought up before and perhaps more importantly, if I'm stating the downright obvious but are the 'abominations' the work/tools of the Pale Woman?

Ah, no. Guys.. we don't have to wonder or guess at what they are. It very clearly states it at the end of Tawny Man. I remember getting to that section on my third re-read and being shocked because I'd never picked up on it before. Here, fool-ish:

Whereas Elderlings are what results of humans when they are in close proximity to dragons, the abominations is what results of dragons when they are in close proximity to humans. The dragons were disgusted by these creatures and banished them to Others Island to help protect and watch over the eggs, far from human eyes.

Gives a new meaning to the fact they captured and held She Who Remembers, doesn't it?

[Farseer]

@ 'thul: I know, yes, and it's the reason why I mostly try to disregard the theory , but it still niggles at me some. I know we talked about this very thing before and someone else said the very same thing to me as you beings have just done!

Though the PW was highly likely not 'the one' who made the decision to imprison SWR, it is possible that she could somehow later connected with those who did, or the one/group who did back in historical times? Maybe she's not. I have to point out that though the Abominations existed long before the Pale Woman did, this does not mean that they have *never* been in her employ or used at some point by her to some advantage. As I said, I doubt it more and more, but it is possible. Actually, darned near anything is possible in this realm!

Forge, as an ironworks, just jumps out at me as the most obvious source for the iron for the bars. While she may not have sourced the iron for the bars herself, there may be some other, possibly related reason why Forge was chosen as her first strike...something other than its random location? Erk! Pale Woman or no, I'm sticking with a connection between iron bars and Forge!

We are talking about it in another thread or, at least, I intend to chat about it following a recent conversation , but the age of the Pale Woman is an interesting topic. She, too, has existed for an 'age' or generations. She went to Aslevjal and, as Prilkop thought her to be the new White Prophet he had been waiting in hope for, he showed her Icefyr'es location. It was then that she took over the Elderling dwelling and Prilkop fled elsewhere on the island. By this stage though, she had already had her 'Catalyst' in tow. How long she had been in operation prior to her appearance in Aslevjal it is hard to say, especially as Fool had been doing things in his WP role long, long before he and Fiz ever crossed paths.

One thing I did not mention here is the priests of Sa. As per my other post, Others' Island is not far from the monastery and, if the priests are Skilled as I believe them to be, they could maybe have even used the Skill Pillars to commute there and fashion the bars? Side note: I think I once may have wondered if the Others themselves could have fashioned them with the Skill? End side note. Or maybe not. They (the priests) may not require the forseeing but they could possibly have employed the Others themselves, to ensure that SWR was not able to lead the serpents to and up the Rain River? I don't expect so though. Just tilling the soil/turning things over for discussion...

Just had a thought...possibly SWR was trapped by the Others to prevent the serpents from heading up the Rain River to their deaths, rather than preventing them going up the Rain River to flourish? I don't think I can believe this either but you never know! As they were charged to look after the eggs laid by dragons, maybe the Others took this on board as well given that dragons were gone from the skies and no eggs were likely to be laid in the near furture. If they were not looking after eggs, maybe they turned their attention to looking after the serpents who remained? If the rest of the realm was changed due to the Cataclysm, maybe the Others were keeping her there until Elderlings had returned to the world and thus then able to fix things for a successful serpent migration? Remembering the serpent and bones etc that greeted Tintaglia as she flew the river, no serpent was ever going to make it if they followed the path of their ancestoral memories, as they'd had to have done without the help of a One Who Remembers? If SWR had been free, she'd likely have led all of the serpents to their deaths. By being imprisoned, the serpents grew restless and hungry and tired and older but still they survived and many were finally able to make it to the cocooning grounds later.

Hmm...of course, the Others could just as easily have explained all of this to SWR who could have then gone on to warn the serpents rather than wrongly lead them upriver. Ah, well, it sounded slightly feasible (?) for a while there...

Though able to use glamour etc, maybe the Others could not experience ancestoral memories as they could have in dragon form and so simply made those memories of SWR their own? Maybe they missed their dragon kin?

In a tangle, as always...

EDIT: I'm in favour of the Others being heroes.

['thul]

It is not unlikely that it was 'thul you had the discussion with before.


How would you react if you had ego like a dragon, then your entire family, or more precisely, species, consigned you to merely be nursery wardens, never to achieve your full potential?
Remember, dragons and serpents have ancestral memories, and thus it would be strange if abominations do not have the same.


Forge is far from the only source of metal, it is merely the only one pointed out. Remember the large amounts of metal used, then recall the size of Forge. Having that place be the sole source does not compute. Forge was a small village, not the sole center for harvesting such a key element of society.

[Narya]

It is not unlikely that it was 'thul you had the discussion with before.


How would you react if you had ego like a dragon, then your entire family, or more precisely, species, consigned you to merely be nursery wardens, never to achieve your full potential?

Probably the same way the dragon keepers do, in a nice mirror symmetry.

['thul]

Keepers are, to varying degree affected by dragon glamor. Abominations aren't.

[Provost]

The Other's don't actually have a duty to watch over the hatchlings, do they? Aren't they just born on the Island and unable (perhaps also unwilling) to leave?

Also, can they breed independently like the Elderlings can or do they have to come directly from dragon births?