There's a user at Westeros, WrathofTinyKittens, I believe, who sometimes posts as WrathofMe here; has got some great thoughts about ongoing metaphors throughout the series, including Bakker's use of trees. Of course, he'll never have anything on Happy Ent, who has repeatedly refused my requests that he join us here to my eternal sads.
I know we have a couple threads here but as Wilshire says: "Ah, yes, the tree imagery thread. Never became anything. A topic much discussed but little concluded."
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Earwan Trees-
Requests for Tree Imagery from the Earwa novels.-
Onkis and Siöl - A Copper Tree ConnectionI will also reiterate a couple sprinkles throughout the series, though I'd really be sending myself on a quote hunt through my paperbacks to find them:
- The skull in the tree in the Mop, that Pokwas and Galian find.
- A mention that witches could harness the "wild urgings" of trees, I believe mentioned by Leweth.
- That it takes a hundred years for the spark of sentience in a tree.
- That people bury their children and grow a tree from them, which some argue is the soul of the child living on and others suggest is the "Demonic Simulacrum" of their children.
Not to mention a very specific and overwhelming passage from
Light, Time, and Gravity, which uses an extended type of tree metaphor; I may have even quoted it in one of the threads above.