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Harbinger Omen

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 10 months ago

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Harbinger Omen

The Harbinger known as Omen appears in the beginning of Book 1 to Horatio Luskfish, a humble Tribbit. His appearance is very brief indeed, but he offers some extremely sage and multifacetted advice to Horatio, which he never heeds.

 

It is this prophetic advice which would have indeed guided Horatio a true course through the stormy events of the book, and on several occasions the troubled Tribbit meditates on the wisdom of the advice and decides that he is indeed going to take action to follow the wisened Harbinger's advice... In another couple of hours.

 

The time when Horatio acts on the advice to make positive change never comes. Most notably at the anticlimax at the end of the book, after which Horatio goes back home to The Dank.

 

It is indeed a stark contrast to the parallel story told of Harbinger Portent who is acting in a noble and wise way atop Mount Windice when he is struck down in the midst of the tumult by Char Reyarteb.

 

It is unclear what the moral to be taken away from this is, because the person following their true inner moral compass is struck down while the procrastinating moral "wet noodle" is rewarded with continued existence.

 

The Curse

Harbinger Omen's back story (not revealed in Book 1) informs us of the curse placed on the Harbinger. He is fated to be able to perceive the future but is unable to refrain from taking action which would prevent that prediction from happening. Even through intentional inaction, his choices of how to execute inaction have side effects which avert what would have otherwise been a certain future occurance. As a result, no vision of the future that he has will come to pass, but it will always be a direct result of some action that he does or does not perform.

 

Manifestations of the Curse

This manifests itself in Book 1 as advice given to Horatio that becomes a standard against which Horatio compares himself and finds himself unable to measure up, therefore he does not even try in a circumstance in which he may have blindly blundered forward to the correct actions.

 

Another notable occurance is Omen's predictions about Thule Runderkrust becoming tremendously wealthy and the lands south of the Grotto of Woe becoming a hub of commerce in Battal. This prediction lead Runderkrust to mine aggesively in order to bring about an even faster amassing of fortunes. Of course the well known consequence was the death of Runderkrust and the formation of The Accursed Lake south of the grotto, forming a spica poisoned lake and essentially ruining the region.

 

Discussion

TIMcan anybody else think of things that Omen predicted that through his vision he accidentally prevented despite his best efforts?
bfg00Didn't he predict The True Unsundering but instead The Resundering occured?

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