This is about the good version of the lone power (sorry, I don't have my book and don't quite remember her name, so...)

She's basically the same as other powers, right? Eg she can dip in and out of the time stream. So if she can do that, why don't we know she exists already? Even if she's 'born' in a specific spot IN the time stream, can't she go backwards and appear wherever she wants...?

Maybe Memeki has been appearing in the past and future, but as an unnamed Power? There'd be a reason to avoid giving a name, to avoid alerting the Lone Power... except that if their knowledge of events is as non-sequential as they are, the Lone Power would have been alerted when Memeki "first" appeared, whether in the past or the future.

Ow. My head hurts.

Good point. That's one of the reasons this particular plot point raised my eyebrows a little. If the Lone Power is what he's purported to be, you can't get rid of him. He's as durable and as real and as self-existent as all of the other Powers. (Unfortunately, I also have a problem believing that a Power can run out of...well...power. Determination and strength of will. But that's another story.)

I thought the point of High Wizardry was that the Lone Power had to make a choice and stopped rebelling, at least in that incarnation. Doesn't the redemption there matter? If so, why do the Powers need another good version of him? And if Mimeki is another version of him, how does that serve the purpose? For she's not him...she's could only ever be a replacement and for the Lone Power himself, nothing has changed. The worth of a soul lies in its uniqueness and in its choices. You can replace him, but you can’t change him or fix the essential problem with him. Not without his consent. That is the danger and wonder of moral agency, the power to act and choose for ourselves, and that is what makes people precious. It is what gives them the possibility of a soul and identity and even divinity. (This is also why I personally don't like the idea of avatars. You are who you are and though the opportunities might be endless, there has to be an integrity to your character, a distinctness and discreteness, or there is nothing concrete enough to call a person. You cannot be two people at the same time, by definition.)

If there’s a glitch in Ms. Duane’s metaphysics, it’s in (perhaps) a certain ambiguity about good and evil, choices and consequences. Do we take evil seriously? Does it have serious consequences?

Without choice, a person is nothing. Unformed. Not truly a person at all. And so by our birth as individuals, by choosing between good and evil, we become distinct and we gained the potential for happiness or misery. The Power that created us could no more deny us the power to choose than he could cut any intelligence off from the possibility to grow and progress.

And so the possibility to choose evil came into existence and some intelligent beings chose it. But by doing so, they came out in rebellion against all that was good and by definition became miserable. The question is what happens when people choose evil.

If a choice is going to matter, if it is going to mean anything for good or ill in the character of a person, the choice has to have consequences. If the effect, if the meaning is going to last, it has to have duration. And so the consequences of our choices have to endure. What we do and choose, we cannot undo or unchoose without undoing everything we are and the whole purpose and possibility of our existence. That is the nature of existence. And so, ultimately, each of us makes a choice between eternal misery and eternal happiness. Evil might seem to have the advantage there…by our immaturity, by the selfishness and ignorance and willfulness that is natural and easy to us because we are discrete, developing human beings…we tend to choose evil. But good has the strongest forces in the universe at its disposal: by nature, we need and cleave to the light. We want to be happy and we don’t like misery. More importantly, we long for love. And the one who created us did so out of love and continues to love us. He wants others to have the opportunity to feel and be good.

And so the question is this: what is the purpose of Mimeki? What is the point of what happened in High Wizardry? Is it possible to redeem the most evil power in the universe? I wonder if Duane wasn’t a little unsatisfied with the conclusion she came to in High Wizardry. For dramatic, if not logical, reasons and that’s why Mimeki was invented. The problem is that you can’t go back and erase the evil someone has done. That would be worse than murder because it negates their very identity and their right to make choices. But the alternative isn’t something we like to hear: that people can and will do evil things and the Powers will not step in to make anyone choose right. Which means some will be lost.

For me, there’s a simple solution: evil is real and the evil we do does last, without outside intervention. And maybe nobody can (or at least should try to) fix some ultimate sources of evil in this universe and people we care about really can be lost and all good can do, really, in the last resort—if they persist in rebellion—is lock them away where they have no more power to tempt and to cause trouble. Yet I don’t believe there can be many of those. Few if any mortals on this earth could have enough light, knowledge, and power to set themselves up for that kind of condemnation and none but the very most hardened could fail to acknowledge the truth and the error of their ways in the light of what they will see and know in the eternal realms. The Creator can and does step in to help us, and redemption and repentance of the wrong we do is possible so that our ultimate decision will be for good.

Strange stuff, I know. I hope this isn't totally incomprehensible. Thanks!

Wow that's a long post...

From what I gathered from HW the LP was redeemed in the end, but because the Powers live outside of Time, it would take a great deal of time inside Time for the change to happen everywhere.

Memenki is supposed to be a version of the LP that has never fallen.

In other words she's like a whole diferent Power.

This might not even make sense with the last post cause I skimmed over most of it...


EDIT: Read a bit more of that post...

Evil is all relative.

For example, something that seems evil on one world could be perfectly okay on another.

Maybe there was a glitch in something the Powers created so the LP invented Death as a solution.

To the Bright Powers death would seem evil because it, in their minds, destroys what has been created. However to the LP it wouldn't seem evil. Just a solution to something even more destructive.

Also, Yes every choice matters, wether it's good or bad, yes every choice has a consequence, but you're forgetting one very important factor. Forgiveness.

Yes, the consequences of our acts will always be there, but others can choose to forgive us for what we've done.

Okay... that's all for now... my head's starting to hurt... >_<

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Cyber Mirage,

I think a new Power was needed because even though the LP himeself was redeemed, there were still fragments of It that were lying around doing what the LP had sent them to do. That's what the wizards have to fight, like what the LP said near the end of HW, to stop him. And the new Power was there to fight off this more powerful version of the LP, and was most effective for it because Memeki basically was the LP, just never fallen.

Hmmm. I think that makes sense...

I don't really think she can. Or rather, if she can, she couldn't do it until now. the future isn't set till it happens. there was a chance they would fail. Now that she's succeeded, she may be able to go back in time and change the past, or she may not, it's hard to say. But either way, i don't think she could do it before now.

I might be totally off, but to me it seemed that Memiki was really the same Lone Power. The Lone Power changed his mind at one point, but there were still versions of him traveling through time that hadn't changed yet. This Lone Power will never stop because he already exists at all points in time.

Memiki, however, was a spirit literally born FROM that of The Lone Power. She lived as the Lone Power told her too, and yet deep down felt as if the thing controlling her life was wrong. In a metaphorical way, her journey literally reflected the journey of the Lone Power to come to terms with a life like one that Kit and Nita believe is right, rather than a life that the Lone Power believed is right.

It's true that they're two seperate powers, but they were originally one because the only difference is the way in which they believe everything to be connected. (Memiki = Everything interconnected Vs. The Lone Power = Everything heading toward entropy) I see them as one person who suddenly just changed their self-definition, and in doing so changed their identity.

Hence, as I put it, them being different but still the same entity.

I think there isn't good or evil. Just choices. If there are all these fragments of the lone power is there a main(I don't know how to say this.) Being or thing of him? He can't be one full power with all these other parts of him making different choices. And if there is a main part of Lp making all the main choices he would never turn 'Good' or change his choice. Some one as powerfull as the lp could never admit they are wrong.