Stone 61

Chapter 61
We return now to Richard, who is preparing his minions Kipp and Hersh for some sort of mischievous doin's involving pockets full of frogs. Richard creeps ahead to “the proper door” and invisibilizes himself with his cloak of invisibility. Moments later, Kipp and Hersh run to the door (which proves to be the door to the Prelate's office), throw it open, and start fling frogs at Ulicia and Finella, the Prelate's secretaries. They shout “Can't catch us!” and run off, with the Nuns in hot pursuit.
Richard strolls in, finding a door between the desks. The air around said door is sparkly and feels thick, but Richard pushes through it with no ill effects. Beyond, he finds a room full of books and papers, and also “an old woman, one of the cleaning staff, in a heavy, dark gray work dress.” Said cleaning woman is – surprise surprise – busy cleaning. We learn that the top of her head comes “only up to the lower tip of [Richard's] breastbone,” and that she's “on the wide side.”
She's a dwarf? . . . Does she have a beard?
Richard tells her he wants to see the Prelate. The cleaning woman tells him he needs and appointment and after half a page of blather Richard finally realizes that she is, in fact, the Prelate. Why she's wearing the dress of a cleaning woman I don't know.
There's some more banter, and the Prelate says she's been waiting to see Richard. Richard wants to know why she wouldn't let him in before, and she says it was a test. What she was testing, or what this is supposed to teach Richard, I have no idea. \~/ Apparently she just arbitrarily decided to make things difficult for Richard, and no coherent reason will be given.
The Prelate is described as having “ample, rounded breasts.” \~/ Why are we being told about her breasts? She's an old dwarf woman who happens to be the Pope. Why on earth would we want to read about her breasts?
Sisters Ulicia and Finella suddenly reappear, flinging Richard around with telekinesis until the Prelate tells them to let him go. Richard says that he is responsible for the actions of Kipp and Hersh, and any punishment should be directed at him, not them.
Wait . . . is Richard acting with honor and responsibility? I feel weak.
Oh, but he immediately ruins it by adding “If you harm them, you will answer to me.” Ah, back to the random threats of violence; that's our Richard!
Ulicia retorts that the boys' punishment has already been ordered, and Richard is to be punished as well. The Prelate – you know what? Her name is Annalina, so she will hereafter be known as Ann. Ann says that, since she ordered Ulicia and Finella to keep Richard out and he got in anyway, the Sisters shall take the punishment they have assigned the boys.
That . . . doesn't really make any sense at all. Kipp and Hersh did throw frogs at the Nuns. They should be punished in some fashion. What possible logic, justice, or shred of common sense is there in letting the boys off and punishing the secretaries? \~/\~/
Wait; I just figured it out. Ulicia and Finella opposed Richard, and anyone who opposes the Sue in any way whatsoever must be punished.
The secretaries whine about it, but Ann threatens to excommunicate them (really? Really?) so they submit and leave. Ann tells Richard that she punished Ulicia and Finella because Richard took responsibility for his actions. This means he is learning to be a wizard.
Um . . . yeah. Apparently by “taking responsibility” and “learning to be a wizard,” Ann means “using people.” Specifically she says that Richard knew Kipp and Hersh could get hurt being used as a distraction, but he did it anyway. This, somehow, is a good thing.
“The burden of a wizard. That's what it is called. Using people. A wise wizard understands that he cannot do everything himself, and that if the matter is important enough, he must use other people to accomplish what must be done. Even if it is to cost those other people their lives. It's a rare ability, and vital to being a good wizard. Perhaps, to being a Prelate too.”
Sigh . . .
The defining attribute of being a wizard (or at least a good one) is being able to use people. Not magic. Not wisdom. Manipulation skill, and the mindset necessary to pull it off. This, it seems, is what Terry Goodkind thinks makes a “good” wizard.
Richard says that he needs to talk with Ann, so they go walk in her garden. Richard says that he needs to get his collar off, and starts to mention Satan. Ann correct him with “The Nameless One,” and Richard says “Ann, it's just a word. It's the meaning of the word that matters, not an arrangement of letters. Do you think that when you call the Keeper the Nameless One, instead, that he would be fooled into thinking you weren't speaking of him?”
Well, there are tons of real-world mystical belief systems where speaking an entity's true name attracts its attention, and usually not in a good way. Given that this is a world where magic is a demonstrable fact, and supernatural entities such as Satan and his oddly-named demons obviously exist, I think referring to him by title instead of name seems like a sensible precaution. He's freaking Satan! Who knows exactly what he can do? \~/
Also (spoiler!), later in the series, we encounters some malevolent supernatural entities . . . and speaking their names draws their attention. Yeah. \~/
“It's a mistake to assume your enemies are ignorant, and you are clever.”
It's also a mistake to take unnecessary risks, especially involving magic. And isn't Richard assuming that the Nuns (who are all sorceresses, and who spend decades studying God and Satan) are ignorant, and he is clever? \~/
Naturally, Ann explains this to Richard, and . . . no, wait; instead she laughs and says “I have been waiting for a very long time for someone to figure that out.”
Hey Ann! You're effectively the Pope! Maybe instead of wasting your time dusting bookshelves you could be, I dunno, offering theological advice to the people you're in charge of?! \~/
Richard and Ann chat for a while, the gist of their conversation being that Richard wants to stop Satan and Ann warning him (using vaguely Yoda-like homilies) not to act rashly. We also learn that Richard is “the pebble in the pond,” because his actions affect many other people as a pebble thrown in a pond generates ripples. We then learn that Ann knew Richard's stepfather George; in fact, she helped him get the Book of Counted Shadows. This means, if you recall, that she helped him steal it from Zedd, who was the book's legal owner and who was guarding it at the time. We also learn that Ann met Richard when he was just a few months old.
Apropos of nothing, Ann tells us that “Over three thousand years ago, wizards had Subtractive Magic.” What about sorceresses? Have they ever had Minus Magic, or is this yet another way in which men are arbitrarily better?
“None since has been born with it.” None since when? Three thousand years ago? Was there some even that marked the end of Minus Magic babies, or is this just a vague approximation? 
“We have been hoping, but none, until now, has come into this life.” Why have you been hoping? What do you need Minus Magic for?
“A few have had the calling, but not the gift for it.” I have no idea what that means, and it will never be explained. If they had the calling, couldn't they learn Minus Magic anyway? If not, then what the heck good is the calling? Why even bring it up? \~/
“You have the gift of both Additive and Subtractive Magic.” Yes, Richard is Just That Speshul; he has both Plus Magic and Minus Magic. For no freaking reason at all. None. He just does, because he's the Sue. \~/
Richard is all, What? Ann says that Richard lacks knowledge and that she intends to educate him. She tells him that the only way he can get the collar off is by “accept[ing] your true self, your true ability.” Apparently a Nun can only remove a wizard's collar with the magical assistance of the wizard.
Ann then treats us to an infodump on God and Satan. “Good and evil, the Creator and the Keeper, are chaos divided into two opposing forces. Although each abhors the other, they are interdependent, and cannot exist one without the other. They define each other. The struggle, our struggle in the world, is maintaining the balance.”
Wait; God and Satan are chaos?? 
. . . 
\~/\~/
And if Satan is the Creator's equal and opposite, shouldn't his title be “The Destroyer?” I did not know that keeping was the opposite of creating. \~/
Ann explains that God is life and Satan is death, and both are necessary, since a world without death would ultimately destroy itself. Umm . . . okay. 
"It is through those in this world, who serve him, that the Keeper is given the dimension of time. It is their urgency that drives his struggle, because they understand time. He needs the living if he is to succeed."
I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. \~/ Anyone? Any ideas?
Richard either understands this or doesn't want to think about it too hard, so he asks Ann what part the living play. Ann replies that “We divide and define the chaos with order, and keep it separated: light and dark; love and hate; good and evil. We are the balance.”
That last sentence doesn't seem to have anything to do with the first, does it? \~/
Okay, so according to this God is life and Satan is death, and both are pure chaos. It is humans who “define the chaos with order” (doesn't it cease to be chaos, then? \~/) and separate it into opposites. The chaos that, I remind you, is God and Satan. Both separately and collectively.
. . . Except that we've just been told that God and Satan are total opposites, so why is it necessary for mortals to separate and define “the chaos” into opposites? They're already opposites, just by virtue of their intrinsic natures! It's like saying that humans are required to make fire and ice opposites. \~/\~/
Also, note that Ann has nowhere stated that God is good or that Satan is evil. Indeed, she specifically noted that it's the living who define “the chaos” as good and evil. God and Satan, therefore, must be morally neutral, making them more akin to primal powers of the universe than traditional deities. Keep this in mind. Satan is not canonically evil, according to the Pope.
This despite that fact that, according to this very book, Satan wants to destroy all life everywhere and torture everything that lives for all eternity. Also (spoiler!) in later books we learn that Satan sometimes literally whispers in peoples ears to make them do evil stuff.
Yeah, no. It looks like Terry Goodkind wants both a morally gray world, and a Traditional Black-and-White Morality Fantasy World, so he rammed both in. The result is that neither makes a lick of sense. \~/\~/
Ann then specifically notes that Satan is not evil; “evil” is a label humans put on him. Well, yeah; all terms like that are labels. By that logic, nothing is anything, since all labels are arbitrary words with no inherent meaning on their own. \~/
Okay, I'm going to have to spork this next part practically line-by-line, so bear with me.
Ann says that “Spirits of the dead reside anywhere from the depths of that chaos and hate, near the Keeper, to near the living, near the light of the Creator. It is the hope of the living to spend eternity in the warmth of that light.”
*blink blink*
This theology just keeps getting weirder and weirder. 
So the spirits of the dead don't necessarily go to the underworld? Or are parts of the underworld nice and happy? \~/
And does this mean there's no heaven, per se? Ann seems to be equating the world of the living with the Creator, which means there's nothing “above” it in the spiritual sense (this despite referring to the souls of the living having “come down from the Creator” a paragraph before). \~/
And this makes the title “Keeper” all the more inappropriate. The Keeper is supposed to keep the spirits of the dead. No other explanation makes sense. And yet he doesn't even do that!
At this point I would like to quote Terry Goodkind himself, speaking on morality in fantasy: “Fantasy usually takes conventional values as a given. For example, the evil being battled is commonly a dark force that wishes to do evil- without any reason beyond that it is evil.”
I think that speaks for itself. \~/
“It is we, the living, who separate and define the worlds to each side of life.” Okay, what the hell does that even mean? No, seriously: I do not know what that means. At all. \~/\~/
“Magic is the element that gives this world the power to do that. Magic is the balance point.” So if you don't have magic you're utterly worthless and nothing you do can have any significant consequences. At least that's what I'm getting out of this. \~/
“The Keeper would like to swallow the world of the living, to triumph.” That means that, by extension, God wants to swallow the world of the dead, doesn't it? Since they're both amoral opposites and all. So, since Satan hates the living, doesn't this mean that God hates the dead?
“To do that, he must eliminate magic.” Um, why? \~/
“But at the same time, in order to triumph, he must use magic to tip the balance.” What? What?? \~/
If any of this makes sense, I encourage you to try to explain it in the comments.
“Richard struggled to keep his head above the murky waters of confusion.” Aside from being a terrible metaphor, this marks one of the extremely few times I fully sympathize with Richard.
Ann says that Richard having both Plus Magic and Minus Magic makes him a dangerous person, since he can either mend or destroy the veil. She says that there are good people who would casually murder him for fear that he might destroy them all.
Ann then infodumps about the veil. “The veil is within those of us with magic.” Proof, yet again, that magic = personal worth. Also; what? The veil is within spellcasters? How does that work? I could understand if spellcasters had a connection to the veil, or a strong influence on the veil, but . . . \~/
“We are its custodians. That is why balance means so much to those with the gift.” Actually, I haven't seen any evidence so far that balance means anything whatsoever to spellcasters. Shota? Zedd? Rahl? Giller? The miscellaneous Evil Wizards? What have any of them done that had anything to do with balance? \~/
“When the veil is torn, the balance tips. The further it tips, the more the veil tears.” Sounds like circular reasoning to me.
Ann continues to explain that God and Satan are like yin and yang, each requiring the other for completeness. She says that this belief would be considered blasphemy by many – wait; isn't she the Pope? Doesn't she determine, or at least strongly influence, religion in Europe?
Ann says that various kinds of wizard have various strengths, such as prophets and healers. She then says that Richard is a “war wizard.” One would presume this means that he has a knack for battlefield magic: big explosions, flashy and dramatic stuff that can devastate large numbers of enemies, right? Fireballs and lightning bolts and all that stuff, right?
“War wizard has two meanings which balance each other, as in all things magic.” Note: the second half of that sentence is a blatant lie. \~/
“The first meaning is that they can tear the veil, bring destruction and death – war.” Wait – I thought all spellcasters had the potential to tear the veil, hence their alleged obsession with balance. Remember that, Mr Goodkind? It's on the same freaking page as this! \~/
“And the second is that they have the magic needed to fight against the powers of the Keeper.” I guess this means that non-war wizards can't fight against Satan, then. Funny, I seem to remember Zedd successfully fighting against a screeling some time ago. \~/
Richard asks if the prophecies mean there is no free will, that his life is predetermined. Ann says that no, free will is the most important thing of all. In a rather creepy bit, she tells Richard “I let you live when you were born because you have the potential for doing good.” (my emphasis).
Again with the “good guys” talking about murdering children. Why would Ann even think that? Why would baby-murder even be up for consideration? It sounds as if Ann somehow knew baby Richard had Minus Magic and was thus afraid of the damage he could do . . . except that she just said that the Nuns have been hoping for someone with Minus Magic for three thousand years.
“This child has the prophecized power! He's the hope of the world! Quick, let's kill him before he messes things up!”
No. \~/
Trying to change the subject, Richard asks about the Stone of Tears. Ann says that it acts as a force while in the underworld, but manifests as a physical object in the world of the living. Kind of like the skrin, I guess . . . okay, a point for you, Goodkind, since that ties the magical underworld thingies together and is a moderately decent concept.
Ann then says that “The Stone of Tears is like a weight that holds the Keeper at the infinite end of his world, where his influence here is diminished to the point of balance.” So, if God and Satan are equal, this must mean that God stays at the “infinite end” of his world as well, or else there would be no balance.
Wait a minute . . . if God and Satan are equal in power, and both hate each other, and Satan is hampered by this Stone . . . why hasn't God won? God clearly has more adherents in the mortal world, and he's presumably free to maneuver without an equivalent to the Stone of Tears . . . so why hasn't Life conquered Death already? \~/
For that matter, how in the name of Angband did God put the Stone on Satan in the first place? If they're equal in power . . . Great Cthulhu, this theology just keeps getting stupider. \~/
Ann says that there are other seals holding Satan in Hell; the Stone is only one. Magic, apparently, is another. She exposits that the Stone has the power to “banish any soul to the infinite depths of the underworld. But if it were used in that way, through hate, through selfishness, it would feed power to that side and destroy the veil.”
I'm not even going to ask how the hell that works. \~/
Blah blah, only Richard can put the Stone back where it goes. We learn about the towers in the Valley of the Lost and Found, and Ann says that the white “sorcerer's sand” inside is “extremely valuable, nearly priceless . . . [it] is the crystallized bones of the wizards who gave their life into the towers.” Lovely; now we have carbonized human remains and crystallized human bones. Anyway, the white sand can potentially be used to summon Satan, and the black sand is extra-double powerful and can be used to counter the white. The fact that Richard retrieved some of the black sand proves that he has Minus Magic.
Ann says that the last wizards who had both Plus Magic and Minus Magic made the Grove Woods and the Misters, specifically to draw wizards with Minus Magic to do battle. This provided a release for their Minus Magic, while the collars kept their Plus Magic from killing them. I have to say, a forest full of superhuman killing machines seems like the perfect place to send inexperienced young wizards. \~/ Also, isn't it great how those same homicidal monsters periodically murder random innocent people? Way to go, Ancient Wizards. Way to go. \~/
Richard whines that he wasn't using Minus Magic, he was using the Sword of the Homicidal Hobo. Ann retorts that the Ancient Wizards who made the sword had both kinds of magic, and both kinds are required to fully unlock its potential, and that Richard hasn't even done that yet. That . . . seems to shoot her theory in the foot, doesn't it?
Ann then asks if Richard eats meat, saying that war wizards rarely do; it's a balance for all the killing they have to do. Which, say it with me, makes no sense. The meat is already dead. Whether Richard east meat from a given dead cow or not does not in any way affect the fact that the cow is already stone cold dead. Also, this means that, what, plants aren't really alive? Heck, I'm a vegetarian myself and I think this is insane. \~/
Randomly, we learn that Adie's round skrin bone is another of the seals locking Satan in Hell, and that a war wizard could use it to free Satan. We finish off the chapter with Richard insisting that he can't have Minus Magic because . . . he just doesn't like the idea, I guess? Ann is inexplicably patronizing to him for no real reason, and at long last we get to take a break.
Drinks: 41
<Previous Chapter  -  Next Chapter>