By the Waters of Babylon

"Truth is a hard deer to hunt. If you eat too much truth at once, you may die of the truth. It was not idly that our fathers forbade the Dead Places."

The truth is a very important thing for an individual. It can be very useful or very destructive depending on how it is used. The significance of the quote made by John's father could be broken down in to three different sections according to each statement. First of these statements is "Truth is a had deer to hunt." the second of these statements is "If you eat too much truth at once, you may die of the truth." and the final statement is "It was not idly that our fathers forbade the Dead Places."

"Truth is a hard deer to hunt." The literal meaning of the statement could be interpreted as; the truth is hard to find. Then the question arises, is it hard to find physically or is it hard to grasp mentally? A good example of the physical part of finding the truth was when John went on his journey to the Dead Places. A good example of grasping the truth mentally was when he saw the dead god in the chair, but upon farther examination he realized he was a man rather than a god. The correct interpretation is the second one; the truth is hard to grasp. For example you could tell a person the truth, but until they have been provided evidence or mental reassurance they might not want to believe the truth making it hard to grasp or in the words of John's father "a hard deer to hunt."

This leads to the next statement "If you eat too much truth at once, you may die of the truth." The meaning of this statement is that the truth can be very dangerous. It is also related to the first statement in the sense that once a person grasps and understands the truth, the next stage is how they are going to react to it. If it's a good thing they might

react positively, but if it's a bad thing then it's vice versa. In the case of the John and his people the truth is neither bad nor good rather it is different in the sense that it could be