When She is freed, SWMNBN cries, "I AM MYSELF!".
But Stave had said, "It is by grief and regret that you know yourselves."
But She Who Must Not Be Named has dwelt in eternal grief since the Earth's creation.
So: connections. Connections and conundrums.
We do not meet She Who Must Not Be Named until the third book in the series. At this point in the story, Linden has brought Covenant back to life, but at such a cost that she had made the end of all things inevitable. The consequences to her are a "moral convulsion", and "chagrin like a concussion". Without a doubt she had hit rock bottom; this was the crisis of her life.
Covenant, who was until recently Timewarden, knows who She is.
The devouring grief of a heart. That is the essence, the core, of SWMNBN.In [i]Against All Things Ending[/i] was wrote:Hers was the tale which had given rise to that of Diassomer Mininderain, seduced and misled; abandoned to darkness. During the creation of the Earth, She had been cast down. By the sealing of the Arch of Time, She had been imprisoned. She was Mininderain and Emereau Vrai and the Auriference and scores or hundreds of other women. Indirectly She was Lena and Joan. At its core, Hers was the tale of every love which had ever been used or abused and then discarded.
The tale of She Who Must Not Be Named.
Heart-wrung by Her plight, Covenant watched Her arise amid water and flames, a lake of conflagration; and he understood that behind Her appalling malice and hunger lay a quintessential wail of lamentation, forlorn and deathless: the devouring grief of a heart that knew no other response to absolute treachery.
Devouring: SWMNBN consumes the spirits of women, and makes them one with Herself. She was Mininderain and Emereau Vrai and the Auriference and scores or hundreds of other women. She didn't torment her victims, she consumed them. And, in doing so, she mingled her identity with their identities, becoming a mélange of sadness and darkness.
Grief: A quintessential wail of lamentation. SWMNBN is a timeless being who dwells in eternal pain, eternal grief. But she does not seek to escape this grief. Rather, she lives in her grief like a home. She dwells within it, and lets it surround her, and desires only to remain there. Her response to her grief is to lash out, destroying men, and tormenting women - their cries are the walls of her home.
Heart: The tale of every love which had ever been used or abused and then discarded. SWMNBN grieves so deeply because she has loved so deeply. An eternal being, in eternal pain, because of an eternal love betrayed. A love so absolute demands a grief as absolute; anything less is just more betrayal.
But the bane is one thing; it's profound effect on Linden is a different thing.
Linden's extraordinary percipience of course leaves her open to the excoriation of SWMNBN. But there is more to it than just sensitivity.
The overt manifestation of the bane's influence is creepy crawlies all over Linden's flesh. Formication. But the deeper, more profound effect is despair - the guilt and remorse of having done evil, having caused death. SWMNBN wants to devour Linden, wrap her in feelings of failure, and feed her perpetual despair.In [i]Against All Things Ending[/i] was wrote:So close to that evil, Linden’s efforts barely kept her Staff alight. After the battle of First Woodhelven, she had dreamed of being carrion. The bane made her feel that she was already dead; dead and rotting.
[...] For minutes or hours, Linden lived in a realm of death. She had seen too many agonized faces. They left her at the mercy of carrion-eaters. For her, the bane had become crawling things, venomous and noisome. They gnawed their way out of her flesh, reveling in rot: centipedes and spiders, long worms. She wanted to claw off her skin to be rid of them. But her nightmares had claimed her. She was dead: she was death. Responsible for slaughter -
[...] The gnawing and pinching, the crawling, the quick slither of hysteria: they fell away one by one, incinerated or quashed. When she had burned them all to ash, however, she found that nothing had changed. The conviction that she had become carrion, that she bred only death - her true despair - lay too deep for any anodyne that she knew how to provide for herself. A sickness of the soul afflicted her; and the devouring faces of She Who Must Not Be Named drew closer by the moment.
[...] Behind her, the bane burst through the rockfall: a rupture that stained the air; made the walls tremble. Ahead the slope seemed to strive toward inconceivable heights. But she did not want to know such things. Wrapped in flame, and crooning to herself so that she would not groan or mewl, she struggled against the sensations of biting and pinching; the seductions of despair.
Linden is exceptionally susceptible to the bane's emanations because she had roused the Worm and is suffering from guilt and remorse because of it. The bane is shoving her nose in exactly the kind of stink she feels she deserves.
Women like Linden, who have made mistakes, and who through their failed choices have caused death, committed Desecrations, are SWMNBN's favorite snack. She seeks such women out, for they are ready for Her ministrations. Already despair seduces them. She will feed their despair until they feel like they deserve perpetual torment for what they have done.In [i]Against All Things Ending[/i] was wrote:In those screaming faces, all of them, she saw her fate, the outcome of her failed choices. The bane’s victims had fallen to evil, not because they sought evil - some had not - but because they had made mistakes. Now their legacy was endless agony for every woman who could love as they had once loved.
[...] She was weak because she was wrong. She belonged among the bane’s excruciated fodder. Each spider and insect and worm was an accusation. Good cannot be accomplished by evil means. She felt like carrion because she had committed Desecrations.
The bane makes Linden feel like she makes herself feel when she feels responsible for rousing the Worm of the Worlds End.In [i]Against All Things Ending[/i] was wrote:At the bottom of her heart writhed the conviction that she deserved this. The bane was right. She had killed her mother and failed her son. There was nothing left for her to do except wait to be eaten.
The bane makes Linden feel like Kevin Landwaster. A spirit in eternal torment for having committed Desecration.
People like Mahrtiir and Rime Coldspray, Stave and Bhapa - all her companions - see Linden falling into despair because she does not know how to forgive herself for rousing the Worm, for having made choices that led to death. They try to tell her ... but Linden does not see it.
The voice of despair. Judging oneself by the results of one's actions when those actions lead to mischance. Judging oneself by the results of one's actions BECAUSE those actions have led to mischance. This is Kevin's hell.In [i]Against All Things Ending[/i] was wrote:"Hear me well, Ringthane," Mahrtiir demanded through his teeth. "You tread paths prepared for you by Fangthane’s malice. Speaking of fault, you bind yourself to his service."
Linden bowed her head under the weight of his ire. As if to herself, she sighed, "You don’t understand." No one except Covenant had truly understood her. Lord Foul knew her better than Mahrtiir did. She Who Must Not Be Named knew her better. "What I’ve done is all I have. Without it, I’m nothing. I ignored Anele. I roused the Worm. I followed Roger when he was pretending to be Covenant." Despair made sense. The new blackness of Earthpower in her hands suited her. "If I don’t take responsibility, I might as well be dead."
All three of the Humbled watched her as if she had justified their deepest distrust.
She felt Bhapa’s desire to protest. Stave also seemed ready to object. But Rime Coldspray spoke first.
"Enough." Like an appeal for forbearance, she rested one hand on Clyme’s shoulder. "Linden Giantfriend, it is enough. If joy is in the ears that hear, then I must answer you with laughter. I do not only because I fear to augment your dismay."
Frostheart Grueburn murmured her assent. Several of the other Giants nodded.
"You demand perfection of yourself," Coldspray continued, "when mischance and error are the lot of all who live and die. You have assumed burdens sufficient to cow even Giants. For doing so, we honor you. If betimes you chance to stumble, as did Stormpast Galesend -
"Well." The Ironhand tightened her grip on Clyme momentarily, then released him. "Among Giants, you would perhaps be named Blunderfoot." Frowning, she nodded toward both Latebirth and Galesend. "Thereafter you would doubtless be often teased. But you would not be faulted. In the caamora, you would allay your pain and lamentation. Then you would arise, and shoulder your burdens again, and be held in undiminished esteem by all who accompany you.
"I myself," she admitted, "have upon occasion assigned blame to myself. Now I cede that I erred in doing so. There was no harm in my heart when I delivered the blow which gave rise to Lostson Longwrath’s madness. There was no harm in Latebirth’s heart when by mischance she permitted Longwrath’s escape and Scend Wavegift’s death. There was no harm in Stormpast Galesend’s heart when she stumbled. And there was no harm in your heart, Linden Giantfriend, when you fixed your attention and yearning upon your son rather than upon Anele. If I grieve for you, I grieve only because your flesh cannot suffer the healing hurt of flames.
"There is wisdom in the Manethrall’s words." Coldspray shook her head sadly. "You have spoken with the voice of despair."
But in the next few days time we see Linden change. When Jeremiah feels like a failure, she speaks to him, and reminds him that "Failure isn’t something you are. It’s something you do.” But she's inadvertently convincing herself to relent. And Covenant himself sheds her of her pain, teaches her to forgive herself.
Covenant doesn't tell Linden that what she did wasn't bad. He doesn't tell her that she isn't responsible for her own actions.In [i]The Last Dark[/i] was wrote:She hid her face as if she were cowering; as if he had poured acid on her heart. “Then I’ve done it. I’ve doomed—”
As gently as he could, he said, “It’s tempting to think that way. It lets us off the hook. If we’ve already made the only mistakes that matter—or if somehow we just are the only mistakes that matter—we can’t be expected to do anything else. But it’s not that simple.
“For one thing, we aren’t alone. We’re all in this mess together. We’re all making decisions and trying to justify the consequences. Whatever you’ve done, good or bad, you didn’t do it in a vacuum. You’ve been reacting to people with their own agendas and situations you didn’t cause. From the start, the Despiser has been pushing you where he wants you to go. And you’ve had help along the way.
“And for another—” Goaded by his own necessary passions, Covenant’s voice rose. “Linden, I just don’t believe it. I don’t believe Lord Foul can’t be stopped. I don’t even believe the world can’t be saved. Freeing Lord Foul wasn’t the only thing Berek talked about. He also said there’s another truth on the far side of despair and doom. All we have to do is find it.”
“And for another—Oh, hell. I’ve written entire novels about this. ‘Guilt is power. Only the damned can be saved.’ Maybe that sounds cynical. Maybe it is. But who else needs to be saved? Who else can be? Not the innocent. They have their own problems.” He was thinking of the Masters, who thought that rigid purity of service would relieve their ancient humiliation. “They don’t need anything as gracious or just plain kind as forgiveness.
“So maybe blaming ourselves is a waste of time. Maybe we should just admit that everybody goes wrong. Everybody does damage. That’s what being human enough to make mistakes means. And if that’s what being human means, then there’s really only one question we have to answer. Is making mistakes all it means?
“If it isn’t, then everything counts. Resurrecting me and waking up the Worm. Making love together and killing Cavewights. Hell and blood, Linden! I let my own daughter be sacrificed against She Who Must Not Be Named. And I didn’t stop there. I went right up to the most pitiful woman I’ve ever known and stuck a knife in her chest. If you think I don’t feel bad about things like that, you haven’t been paying attention. But if everything counts, then guilt is no reason to stop trying for something better.”
Finally Linden stirred. With small movements, she shifted the position of her arms, adjusted her head on Covenant’s shoulder. For a time, she conveyed the impression that she was listening to the Forestal, or to the rebuffed thrash of the winds beyond the bower, or to the restless concern of Covenant’s pulse. Then she brushed a delicate kiss across his chest.
“Here’s the funny part,” she murmured. “I tried to say practically the same thing to Jeremiah. I used different words, but the point was the same. Maybe I should listen to myself every once in a while. You shouldn’t have to make a speech whenever I think that I’ve done something wrong.”
Suddenly she yawned. “If I weren’t so sleepy, I would ask you to make love again.”
Entirely to himself, Covenant released a deep sigh of relief. There were any number of questions for which he had no answer; but for the time being, he was content with the one that she had given him.
You do not forgive.
Perhaps she did.
He helps her to see further than the consequences of her actions. There is no doom so black or deep that courage and clear sight may not find another truth beyond it. There is more to any person, there is more to any situation, there is more to life, than the results of one's actions. Don't heed the voice of despair.
Everyone has been asking Linden to stop punishing herself for what she had done. But it is Covenant who finally gets through. Covenant, to whom she has looked for spiritual guidance since she knocked on his door ten tears and several millennia ago.
And now Linden, like Kevin, has been redeemed, saved from a self-made prison of self-loathing.
This is the moment when the course of the existence of She Who Must Not Be Named is changed. Because Linden no longer listens to the voice of despair. By extension, she will no longer succumb to the emanations of SWMNBN - she is self-protected from that particular form of assault now. She is now able to face her greatest fear. And she knows she will.
Linden's greatest fear isn't She Who Must Not Be Named. Her greatest fear is what she might discover about herself when she faces the bane. Remember, how the bane makes Linden feel is a different thing from the bane itself. And what she is about to do is filled to the brim with the potential for Desecration.In [i]The Last Dark[/i] was wrote:“My worst fear”—this was as close as she could come to complete honesty—“is that there may actually be something I could do, and I won’t be brave enough to do it.”
[...] “But the Despiser isn’t what scares me the most. Even losing Jeremiah isn’t. Or losing you. That might break me, but it isn’t my worst fear. And the Worm—
“Thomas, I’ve hardly seen the Land the way it was when you fell in love with it. That first time, when we came here together, it was all the Sunbane. And since then, we’ve lost too much, and I’ve been going crazy about Jeremiah.
“Oh, Andelain has changed my life. More than once.” Glimmermere and aliantha and percipience and the Ranyhyn had all changed her. “But I simply haven’t learned how to care about this world as much as you do. The Worm isn’t my worst fear.”
Before he could prompt her, she said, “My worst fear is what I might become. Or what I’ve already become. I need to face that somehow.”
“Then how—?” Covenant began. But he stopped himself. For a moment, he seemed to scramble like a man who felt the ground shifting under his feet. Then his head jerked up as if his chest had been pierced again; as if she had stabbed him. She felt the jolt of his intuitive leap. “Oh. That fear. Now I get it.”
Linden nodded again. Trying to be clear, she said, “Days ago, you left me because you had to deal with Joan. If we live long enough, I’ll have to leave you.”
But Linden faces her greatest fear nevertheless. Deep in Mount Thunder, she and Stave part ways with the rest of the company, and head into the Lost Deep to confront She Who Must Not Be Named. But not to oppose her.
Or beings. Linden goes to the Lost Deep to offer the bane "a form of grace". She is speaking of the redemption of She Who Must Not Be Named. And of the women whose spirits are doomed within Her.In [i]The Last Dark[/i] was wrote:If she did not know how to forgive herself, she could begin by offering other forms of grace to people or beings who needed it more.
In the end, what frees She Who Must Not Be Named from her torment, and her prison, is the release of the souls she kept within herself. She did not know who She was, because She had made of herself an amalgamation of individuals, and in her grief had drowned herself in a sea of misery.
But it is Linden who triggers this necessary action. Because she approached the bane, not to offer violence, but to offer a form of grace. She came only to save SWMNBN, or rather, to show Her how to save Herself. The first soul was a demonstration, and the second soul was a proof. Then the bane got on board, and did the rest.
When the souls were free, and She was only She, She was in turn freed from the weight of all that despair, and freed from the millennial habit of grief. She discovered that this was not who she was. She was herself again.
"I AM MYSELF!"
If one desires to describe the relationship between Linden and SWMNBN, it could only be this: the bane represents the dark cloud of despair that threatens those who will not forgive themselves for what they had done. It is Kevin's torment. It threatens to consume you, and if you succumb, you will lose your true self. Linden preserves the integrity of her wholeness by refusing to incorporate what feels like a part of her -- but is not.
It's no coincidence that Linden encounters She Who Must Not Be Named so soon after rousing the Worm and beginning the End of All Things. Her fight to not judge herself by the outcome of her actions takes place at the same time She threatens to steal her soul. Two dilemmas that share the same psychospiritual root. So when Linden finally learns to forgive herself, a change which Covenant completes, she knows how to deal with the bane. Confronting SWMNBN is proof that Linden has passed through her crisis and has emerged from it stronger and more capable. She is now self-protected against the danger of harmful self-judgement.
But ... if you examine this closely, what relates to Linden is not SWMNBN per se, but rather the effect SWMNBN has on her victims. It is the voice of despair, the perpetual prison of anguish and self-recrimination, which strikes to the heart of Linden's conflicts. But She Herself is not suffering despair ... she is suffering grief. Grief feuled by eternal love and triggered by eternal betrayal. Grief grown into madness and evil.
And it is the Haruchai for which Grief is a chief concern. Until their redemption, they did not grieve. She is a direct contrast to this, for she does nothing but grieve.
By refusing to grieve, the Haruchai judged themselves by outcomes, and became "terrible". They became the epitome of effectiveness, but they inadvertently became an agent of evil. In contrast, She reveled in grief, and became completely ineffective - she did nothing but live in a hole in the ground and nurse her hurts. She was never truly trapped within the Earth - she was bound there because she could not look up from her grief. And She, too, became an agent of evil. Neither truly knew themselves.
The implication, then, is that the wise course is the middle course. One must grieve and regret, and respect this in oneself, to know yourself truly. But one must not let grief consume you, either.