wayfriend wrote:Some of us are just too thick to get it, I guess. And too unsophisticated to stop discussing it when it is so clearly resolved.
WF, I would never suggest that you or anyone else in this discussion is "too thick." Clearly you and MS and Wos and DrP are intelligent, educated people. I'm probably more frustrated than incredulous about the reasons this debate is unresolved. I suspect the source is the all-too human tendency to view things through one's own pre-existing world view, combined with the competitive nature of intelligent people and the resistance against revising one's opinions.
Despite my frustration, however, I am enjoying the discussion and consider all of you worthy adversaries.
wayfriend wrote:How can you demonstrate the power of choice if you do not measure it against the unexpected? How can the unexpected be a fair measure if it is only ever disasterous? What is hope if all depends on choice alone?
Unexpectedly beneficial events can be described as "luck." As I've already admitted, I think this is what SRD is talking about. But I do not think hope is
dependent upon the necessity that chance events won't always be negative. Given that all things end, that all life is mortal, and all humans are limited in their effectiveness, hope has its deepest meaning in its paradoxical nature, i.e. hope in spite of
All Things Ending. ("Against" = "hope in spite of").
Sometimes a wonder is wrought. But the closer we get to our inevitable ends, the less likely and significant this random fact becomes. Hope is much more than faith in luck; it is a revolt, a resistance to despair. Perhaps the wonder that is wrought is the paradoxical hope itself, i.e. finding meaning, love, and happiness despite our transitory, limited, and suffering nature.
Surely Donaldson was not writing a story only for the lucky few who find wonders wrought for them. Surely those who live lives of uninterrupted mundanity can also find reasons to hope, find meaning in this story.
Personally, I do not think that "betimes a wonder is wrought" is as much as
theme as it is a way to legitimize fortuitous plot choices by the author. It's insurance against
deus ex machina accusations (since the characters themselves are predicting it, it can't be said to come out of nowhere). It's a way to justify a happy ending that otherwise might seem too easy.
Mighara Sovmadhi wrote:
the appearance of the ochre-robed man in the "real" world is itself providential, in a way.
I honestly have no idea what to make of the ochre-robe dude. I don't think Donaldson does either, which is part of the reason why he left him out of the LC. Here's the problem: both Foul and the Creator are aspects of Covenant, i.e. his destructive and creative sides. But the ochre dude is supposedly the Creator, too? Does that mean he's also Covenant? How can that be, when he appears to Covenant in the "real world?" It's only in the Land that Covenant meets externalized aspects of himself.
So either we're all missing something very important--such as the "real world" actually being just a variant of the Land world--or Donaldson made a fundamental mistake with his symbolism right from the beginning, back when he was less experienced and hadn't given his creation as much thought. Getting rid of the ochre dude in the LC eliminates those problems. This is mirrored in his frustration in the GI with Creator questions, which he eventually stopped answering. If transcendent forces were an active theme at this later, more sophisticated stage of his writing, he would have no reason to avoid or downplay the issue.
Also, if the Creator is an aspect of Covenant, then perhaps the axiom that he can't intervene in the Land is just an expression of the literal-metaphorical divide (which the ochre dude clearly violates). In other words, the Creator can't interfere in the Land while Covenant is in the real world, because Covenant's creative side is literally part of himself, not an externalized personification/symbol of part of himself he can meet and interact with. And when Covenant is in the Land, the Creator can't interfere with the Land because that's the whole reason Covenant is there, to awaken his creative side and mediate the conflict with his destructive side. If the Creator saved him from his Despiser, the personal battle would happen without Covenant's input, eliminating any need for this story to be told. So Donaldson put Covenant in a mythical place where he could confront parts of himself in external forms, but this is really only useful as a story technique for one side of his creative/destructive divide. If he had both sides represented externally in the Land, there would be nothing for Covenant to do except watch them confront each other.
So the semblance of transcendent aid is just an artifact or byproduct of this necessity in the story's structure. It's necessarily asymmetrical. Perhaps our own need for symmetry is responsible for emphasis on the Creator as an active agent, and hence transcendent forces and Creator questions.
Joe Biden … putting the Dem in dementia since (at least) 2020.