Why would it kill Darryl??

[Moeen]

Here are my two cents on the topic, with some more research I did on where DD got the idea for Abdals. Here goes:

According to the Manual "Should they become conscious of their own status as abdals, the realization itself renders them ineffective in their role, which is to channel the One's power without obstruction into the strengthening of the world. Their portion of that power is then lost to the Worlds, and with its loss, the abdal dies."

I'm guessing the reason for this is that realizing they have such power would lead them to become vain (that is, make them think that they are better than others, which in some sense they are), which would then get in the way of doing what's right. Hence, they'd become ineffective as a source for guidance, which is the purpose of the power they were given, and is perhaps the reason they exist. If they canot fulfill their purpose, they die. This makes sense since according to he Manual "Their power is derived strictly from the incorrupt nature of their personalities." So, a flawed personality would result in a loss of power for an abdal.

Anyway, this is the best explanation I can give for that condition. What do you think?

Of course, another reason why DD imposes this condition is because she got the idea for it from some place else, which she in fact points out at the Concordance entry for Abdals is The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges (which is also probably the source for some other beings in the YW universe such as the Simurgh), where the analogous beings also have a similar condition imposed on them. In particular, the entry on Lamed Wufniks says

On the earth there are, and always have been, thirty-six just men whose mission is to justify the world to God. These are the Lamed Wufniks. These men do not know each other, and they are very poor. If a man comes to realize he is a Lamed Wufnik, he immediately dies and another man, perhaps in some other corner of he earth, takes his place. These men are, without suspecting it, the secret pillars of the universe. If not for them, God would annihilate the human race. They are our saviors, though they do not know it.
This mystical belief of the Jewish people has been explained by Max Brod.
Its distant roots may be found in Genesis 18, where God says that He will not destroy the city of Sodom if ten just men can be found within it.
The Arabs have an analagous figure, the Qutb, or "saint."

A saint is probably the general idea here, for even the Concordance entry on Abdals says "It would not be too far off the mark to describe abdals as saints, or at least as saintly." In fact, with a bit of research, one can find that Borges's entry does in fact have historical and religious sources. In particular, one can simply check out the Wikipedia entry on saints, and more specifically what it means in Judaism and in Islam. Lamed Wufniks have their origins in the concept of tzadik, and in particular, they are also known as Tzadikim Nistarim, which comes from the Talmud. (The name Lamed Wufnik, also spelled Lamedvavnik, apparently comes from Yiddish, "lamed-vav" meaning 36 in Hebrew, and "nik" meaning "a person who..." in Russian, see the Wikipedia entry for more info.)

The corresponding concept in Islam would appear to be the Qutb (or Kutb depending on how you transliterate it). According to the Wikipedia entry for Kutb (as of now anyway) "Every 200 years the kutb changes, and there may only be one kutb at a time. Each kutb influences knowledge according to the times and is the pillar of the faith upon earth, the axis of the faith. According to other beliefs, no one knows whether the Kutb are one man, or two men, or four men; they have the supervision of all the saints alive on earth, and are more powerful than kings, though they look like ordinary men. They are often seen yet almost never recognized, and they travel over the earth, mildly reproving the impious and hypocritical." (In fact, Kutb means axis or pole in Arabic, which is similar to the concept of a pillar). The only difference in this case is that it may not be the case a Kutb's role becomes ineffective with a realization of their power.

At the very least, the condition that an abdal should die after realizing their power does make things interesting. Another question to ask would be where does the name "abdal" come from? (It sounds like the word "abd" in Arabic, which means slave or servant, but I'm just guessing.) What do other people think?

[Caitlin]

Ooh! Ooh! New Pet Theory!

This doesn't really pertain to whether or not knowing what he was would kill him, but why he shouldn't know. Could the whole 'if he knows. he will die' thing just be a precaustion by the Powers to keep people from telling him? The powers could be totally just trying to avoid a major corruption fo the power by scaring everyone into not putting them into the situation to have a major corruption for the Powers to deal with.
Darryl's a major source of power and the flow of wizardry. So if Darryl knew that he was, in fact, an abdal, that could seriously jepoardize the flow of power, and open it up to corruption by the LP. Which, in turn, would be a MAJOR problem for the Powers.

So could this whole warning about abdal death just be a trick to avoid even more unpleasant happenings from some power source issues?

[J*8]

Could the whole 'if he knows. he will die' thing just be a precaustion by the Powers to keep people from telling him?

<span class="ev_code_PURPLE">No. At least, I don't think so. Remember the Lone Power tries to tell Darryl what he is. The LP knows that Darryl will die if he finds out, so it can't be just a warning...Abdals DO die, if they learn what they are.</span>

[Kebin]

I think that if Darryl knows then he will be corrupted by the knowledge that he has that power.

[What\'s up, doc?]

Though it's possible that Darryl will be corrupted, I do not really think so. If he would be corrupted, then he would not have been "chosen" as an abdal in the first place. There are many other wizards to choose from. Also, I do believe that there are people (I think Darryl is one) who are good from the bottom of their hearts, and in them, good will always triumph over evil.

[Alonzo S.]

Maybe what's going on is that the innocence of the abdal is what makes it possible for them to channel the One's power, so if they knew what they were doing, they'd start worrying about whether they were worthy to do it, and they could get messed up. But if they don't know they're doing it, they'll just go on doing it without any trouble.

Like a centipede watching his feet.... if he starts worrying about how he walks, he falls over... (not that centipedes probably worry that much...)

[Septimus]

i pretty sure that darryl would either die from the release of power or because everyone in life has a purpose and if your a pillar then your purpose is pretty clear... without a purpose you'd probably end up dead or under the starsnuffers control. at least thats how i see it. but i think the point of a book is to draw your own cocnclusions so don't re-ly soly on my awnser let your imagination of the leash.

[Nights Mistress]

I assumed that the reason why Darryl would die would be because his unconscious action as a conduit of power would be brought to his conscious awareness. The power would be withdrawn once Darryl's aware of his role because he couldn't be a passive source then, as he'd be aware of it. It's rather like how when you don't think about your breathing, it's regular, but when you start to consciously think about it, your breathing rate starts to fluctuate. Earth's conduit to wizardry fluctuating would be pretty bad news, so the Powers would take the power away from Darryl in order to protect Earth.

As for why the removal of power would kill Darryl, Darryl's been an Abdal a lot longer then he has been a wizard. He's been a wizard for three months or so, whereas he's been an Abdal for far longer, as the seeing of the darkness in everyone's souls caused him to go autistic in the first place. It's a part of him in a way that wizardry couldn't be. Presumably he was born an Abdal, and so removing such a fundamental part of himself would kill him.

[Septimus]

you are absolutley right i think. i just looked it up in the book and darryl is constently reffered to as innocent so i suppose if he found out he wouldn't be so innocent anymore. Kind of like the immaculate conception of mary in the bible.

[Wiccangixie]

I think the concept is that Darryl is meant to be naive as both a wizard and a conduit of power. Darryl would end up somewhat tainted if he found out that he was the main power for the One, not to mention he would find out that he is the only conduit in existence. Maybe revealing the concept to Darryl would somewhat overwhelm his character, but whether that's a good or bad thing isn't even meant to be a considerable situation for the concept of abdals anyway. Maybe that's why DD made him an abdal. She enjoyed the idea of keeping an innocent, naive, yet enjoyable character within the Wizards world.

[SpacePen]

Humility

the description of being an abdal reminds me of the way some people describe humility.

Mainly the idea that if you think you're humble, you're most definitely not. A humble person will focus on the task at hand, doing it well and with heart and mind and soul working seamlessly together at it. As soon as a person steps back from whatever they're doing, they stop doing it and begin looking at themselves doing it. As soon as they begin looking at themselves doing it, all sorts of humility-annihilating things appear. Instead of evaluating whether the task is well done, evaluation of themselves is mixed in. Possibly there arises a desire for others to watch them. Knowledge that someone else might do the task better or worse is hardly preventable (it doesn't much matter which: if I know someone else does it better, I think I'm not as good as them; if I know they do it worse, I think I'm better than them; the point is that I'm thinking of myself in either case, instead of thinking of the job at hand).

It's like the difference between reading a book for pleasure while enjoying and "living in" the story, and reading a book for a Literature class while evaluating the grammar and the diction and the characters and drawing comparisons to other stories and discussing the relative merits and demerits of the author's style and the importance of the book as a "work" (of art) or as an "influence" (on a generation or a country or a culture or a language), etc., etc. Once you have to evaluate the book on any level you are no longer experiencing the book's power as a story but merely talking about it. Hence, in one sense when you read a book and get "lost" in it, you are a conduit of the power the author wields. As soon as you start talking about the power the author wields, you no longer have it passing through you. Of course if you're reading a book you can switch back and forth between evaluating and experiencing.

But suppose the book itself came alive and began participating in writing the words on it's pages. Suppose the author is sending visions to the sentient book all the time, and the book is experiencing these visions by writing them down - and what is written down is the story you read, the story you "get lost in". Do you for one moment think the story would still be the story - with all it's power - if suddenly while you were reading it, the book itself interrupted the way it's transcribing the visions it receives from the author to start writing commentary on the story? And not just footnotes, but interrupting itself mid-sentence and placing it's own self-evaluation in the middle of the events and characters that you want to read about? It would be as if all the discussion on these forums were inserted in between the chapters of each book. Not as footnotes - not in a side column - not even in italics or some differentiated type font, but as if it were written in the place where DD is supposed to be telling the story. There's no way you could "lose" yourself in the story and experience it's power if you were constantly reminded that it IS a story and you'd be forced to come out of it and evaluate it every step of the way.

No book like that would sell. A book like that would die before it got to the editor's desk. Books lose their power if they don't continually and without interruption portray what the author intends. It is the place of the readers to both enjoy (experience) the book and to look at (evaluate) it. The reader of an annotated book can do neither: The ability to lose themselves in the story is gone and the act of evaluating which is their right has been usurped.

Furthermore if you've got a sentient book and the author is still in the act of writing the story - you couldn't "pause" what the author is saying to let the book have it's commentary - any time the book spent evaluating itself would be a section of the story lost forever.

Nothing wrong with commentary -- but it has to be in the right place. I think an abdal has to be humble to the point of truly not knowing what they are because they are, in a sense, a 'sentient book'. Through which their Author pours great power. Power that is experienced when those around them are not evaluating the abdal as an abdal but are interacting with him or her. That's why I think not many people recognize the abdal as an abdal - remember how Tom (or was it Carl?) was surprised that Nita thought Darryl was an abdal and was surprised that she had been given access to the theoretical descriptions of abdals?

I think that what an abdal does as a conduit is a task so big that it requires the one who is doing it to be totally and completely focused and "lost" in the task. All the time. If the abdal starts to evaluate what they are doing, they stop performing the task and start practicing it. Ever heard a musician practice? Ever heard a musician perform? If it's good practicing, you won't want to hear it, and if it's good performing, you will want to hear it. An abdal has to perform all the time, non-stop. The show must go on or else it's no longer a show. An abdal can't know what they're doing because it would mean they were no longer doing it, but looking at how they did it a moment ago.

If being an abdal is being a saint and a savior - well, it is well-documented that saints and heroes are uncomfortable when someone tells them what they are. They often say things like "anyone would have done the same, if they had been in my place". They don't see themselves as saints and they don't seem to see any possible different way of doing things. They don't do it in order to be seen and praised - they do it because it needs to be done. And though I'm not familiar with all religious traditions, my own certainly gives instructions about doing good deeds in secret, and furthermore, doing them without even letting my right hand know what my left hand is doing! In other words - focus on the task, not on watching myself do the task.

[Dragon Writer]

Perhaps it's just too much power. Maybe not knowing gives a sort of shield - you don't know you're doing it, so you aren't doing more than you can handle, and you can de with it almost instictively.
Knowing removes the protection.

Failing that, it could just be a failsafe - too much power corrupts, and that's way too much power to put at risk.