The Courts of Chaos, chapter 7

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of The Courts of Chaos by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. You may well have a lot of reading ahead of you.

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As part of Oberon's plan to repair the primal Pattern in Amber, he tasked Corwin with riding as quickly as possible through Shadow from Amber to Chaos. As he did so, he was waylaid twice by Brand trying to persuade him to surrender the Jewel of Judgment. He then narrowly escaped a group of little people who tricked him into drinking with him in their underground hall, and then a third confrontation with Brand in which he tried to kill Corwin with a crossbow, but mortally wounded his horse, Star, instead. Corwin was then rescued by his bloodbird, who pecked out Brand's eye before they both disappeared.

Chapter 7 is heavy on dialogue and philosophical ruminations, so I'm going to approach it a bit differently, by interleaving my own commentary with the plot summary.

After being forced to dispatch Star, Corwin continues his journey to Chaos on foot. He arrives at a valley full of coloured fog. He cuts himself a walking stick from an ancient tree. The tree is sentient and scolds him, but recognizes the Jewel of Judgment, momentarily mistaking Corwin for Oberon, then gives him its blessing to keep the staff.

The tree calls itself "Ygg." Clearly it's meant to represent Yggdrasil, the World Tree of Norse mythology. "Ygg" itself is one of the names of Odin, and "Yggdrasil" means "Ygg's horse," a kenning¹ for "Ygg's gallows," because Odin sacrificed himself by hanging himself from the World Tree.

Yggdrasil is a kind of cosmic axis connecting nine worlds through its roots and branches. The parallel with Amber, Chaos, and Shadow, with their interconnected realities, seems obvious. I wonder whether there's an allusion to the nine worlds in the "nine princes in Amber." Brand and Corwin wondered a few chapters back what would happen if they each created their own intact Pattern. What would happen with nine of them?

Ygg was planted by Oberon as a boundary between Order and Chaos. In passing the tree, Corwin has crossed from one realm to another. Amber is the focus of all the realities Corwin has experienced. Is Ygg perhaps another such focus?

While the mythical Yggdrasil is not sentient in the conventional sense, Ygg talks. I am reminded most of the trees in The Wizard of Oz that tell Dorothy and the Scarecrow off when they try to pick some apples. I doubt Zelazny had The Wizard of Oz specifically in mind, but it does strike me as a hint that, just as the movie took place in a dream, the realm Corwin is entering is becoming more and more dreamlike as he progresses.

As Corwin continues his hike, he meets a black bird named Hugi, who knows Corwin because he has been waiting there for him "since the beginning of Time," which of course runs differently there.

Again in Norse mythology, two crows, Huginn and Muninn, travel to and fro in Midgard (Earth) to bring intelligence to Odin. Hugi is Huginn, which means "thought." Is there a Muninn ("memory") as well? Or an Odin-figure that they report to, and if so, who is it?

Corwin comes across a giant trapped in a bog with only his head above the surface. Corwin offers to help him escape, but the Head wants pity, not help, and refuses his assistance. The Head advises him not to bother continuing on his quest to stop Chaos; he wants "the whole works"—all of Shadow—to come to an end. Corwin rejects this nihilistic outlook, and they leave him behind.

Hugi and Corwin walk on, still talking philosophy. The Head's problem, Hugi says, is

proceeding incorrectly by holding the world responsible for his own failings.… The whole problem lies with the self, the ego, and its involvement with the world on the one hand and the Absolute on the other.… One needs to fix one’s vision firmly on the Absolute and learn to ignore the mirages, the illusions, the fake sense of identity which sets one apart as a false island of consciousness.

Ironically, the crow from Norse legend is a Hindu. Just as Corwin has used the power of the Jewel to create a (temporary) island of stability in the midst of chaos, an individual's ego creates a "false island of consciousness" (Ahamkara) that isolates him from the true Self, or Atman. He needs to ignore the false perceptions and illusions of the world of phenomena (Maya) that distract him from the deeper truth of his deeper connection with the Absolute (Brahman).

This would seem to run opposite to Corwin's ruminations about solipsism in chapter 6. Solipsism says "only I exist"; Hugi says the "I" is an illusion, and the true Self is but one part of the Absolute. On the other hand, it seems to lead to the same place that the Head was; by refusing Corwin's help out of the swamp, he has ceased from striving, and, in the words of Jars of Clay, "become[s] one with the mud."²

Just as he rejects the Head's nihilism, Corwin rejects Hugi's Hinduism. He pursues his own ideals, by which he means principles worth fighting for. He is not an idealist.

As the trail continues, they come across a group of human-like folk dancing to music played on stringed instruments, though by invisible musicians. Hugi calls them "the spirits of Time," dancing to celebrate Corwin's passage, though they anticipate his failure. While they are insubstantial and appear not to see Corwin, one woman drops his emblem, a silver rose, at his feet, and he picks it up and wears it on his coat. Their cheering him on, it seems, would put the lie to Hugi's "futilitarianism," as Corwin later calls it. These timeless spirits seem to think his quest is worth the effort.

Corwin and Hugi continue on their journey, which is becoming more difficult, and Corwin is using the Jewel more frequently to assist him. As they rest, Hugi compliments Corwin's persistence. When Hugi again tries to raise the futility of striving, Corwin dismisses his philosophy as "sophomore." He has lived too long not to have contemplated these questions already. (I wonder if, during 400 years of exile on Earth, he ever visited India and had this discussion with a swami?) He points out the contradictory position Hugi is in: he is striving to persuade Corwin's ego rather than continue on his journey to join the Absolute. Either that, or he doesn't believe it at all and is just trying to hold Corwin up. Hugi flies away, apparently stumped by this gotcha.

Many forces have, in fact, been trying to hold Corwin back. Of course, this isn't suprising. You can't really have fiction without conflict. But this middle part of The Courts of Chaos is all about Corwin's quest to reach Chaos, and so far he's been hindered by the environment and his own self-doubts; Brand, who tried to kill him; the leprechauns who abducted his horse; Lady, who tried to seduce him; and, finally, the Head, who tried to persuade him that the whole endeavour was pointless. At this point, it feels like Hugi is actually on his side, but I wouldn't be surprised to find out he's an adversary sent to convince Corwin that his striving is futile. But Corwin is, as Hugi says, persistent in striving for his own ideals.

So far, this chapter has been the most philosophical in the entire series. I would have been be interested in knowing where Roger Zelazny himself came down on these questions. On the one hand, in his other works, he makes liberal use of Eastern religious themes (see, in particular, Lord of Light). On the other, he draws from many mythologies, and was himself a lapsed Catholic who no longer identified with any organized religion, and I've not seen any suggestion he discarded a Western worldview for an Eastern one. Corwin's refutation of Hugi would seem to represent the victory of Western liberalism over Eastern idealism.

Seeing what seems like familiar terrain, Corwin wonders if he's going in circles. He stops and tries casting his fortune with his card deck. This is the second or third time he's done so. It hasn't been explicitly stated, but does tarot reading actually work in this world? His cards are, after all, magical.

Corwin feels the Jewel's slowdown effect, hinting at imminent danger. A large animal like a dog emerges from the fog.

Footnotes

¹ Margin-whisper: A kenning is a figure of speech in which a more expressive phrase is substituted for an ordinary one. Kennings are most famously used in Beowulf, which, for example, uses the kenning "whale-road" for the sea.

² Jars of Clay, "Flood," track 8 on Jars of Clay, Essential 01241-41580-2, 1995, compact disc.