Do you think the Chron's are based on a Lepers Story?

[xp_spec]

Well I don't really know myself, but I was wondering what you guys thought of Stephen R. Donaldsons Chronicles being based on a Leper he might have met some time in his life. I think he might've heard the stories from a Leper and just added a little more color and vitality.


What do you guys think?

[danlo]

Of course being xposed 2 his dad's work w/lepers in India. Did u realize, if u saw Braveheart, that Robert the Bruce's father was a leper? Any movie or book on the life of Father Damien's work w/lepers in Hawaii are very good sources on the subject of leprosy. Also the movie City of Joy, set in Calcutta, is interesting. We've got a pretty interesting discussion on lepers and their strange dreams in our little Donaldson Forum @ Ahira's Hangar--that u can access by clicking my www on the membership list.

[Skyweir]

Yes .. I would think that the experience of being raised in India and his dad working in a Leper colony definitely influenced his choice of disease for his main character ..

Infact SRD's choice in this respect has always fascinated me. What better infirmity .. it receives widespread negative stigma .. and is associated with widespread ignorance. Sure there are other diseases that fit the bill .. aids .. but aids wouldnt satisfy all the dynamics facing TC's character as well as leperosy.

Aids isnt overtly obvious in the sufferer .. but TC with his loss of fingers and rotting flesh .. which SRD expresses so well in the narrative from time to time .. the impotence and loss of sensory perception .. it all works in well to the plot lines.

the whole 'unclean' .. thing .. is perfect within the integrity of the TC character and his experience imo.

[aliantha]

Plus, AIDS wasn't around when SRD started writing the Chrons in the '70s. I can't think of another disease prevalent then that would've sparked the same reaction in the reader that leprosy does. Cancer, maybe.

[vt53]

On my first reading of the first trilogy I felt the stories were an allegory for the bodies fight against the leprocy; I connected the Bloodgaurd to the bloods imunity system, the lords to the intelectual fight to remain sane in the face of a disfiguring disease. TC himself was denial of the problem, the land is the lepors body, etc....

To me the second trilogy weakened the connection the basic premise still holds.

The fact that Hansons disease is essentialy curable today weakens the connection also. AIDS would have been a better choice with much the same basic societal problems, however the change to AIDS would make TC less sympathetic in a lot of peoples opinion.

[Furls Fire]

Changing to AIDS would not work. Altho AIDS is a devastating and insidious, slow life stealing disease, it would not provide TC's "numbness" and "impodence" that were so important in both sets of the Chrons.

AIDS, yes, is a social killer. It and the people inflicted with it are met with revulsion and bigotry and hate. Most of that driven by ignorance and fear. As someone who lived closely with and watched a loved one fight and finally succumb to this illness I can offer a unique insight.

AIDS and Leprosy, at least the Leprosy of the past, are similiar in many ways as far as the reaction to those inflicted with them face. Both cause, which was so eloquently put in the movie Philidelphia, "a social death which often preceeds the physical one". Leprosy works better for Thomas Covenant because of the physical effects of it. The numbness, gangrene, amputations, impodence..all elements so interwoven in the story, that changing to AIDS would mean a major change in the basic core of the plot.

I'm interested in how AIDS would make TC less sympathetic tho?

[variol son]

I'm interested in how AIDS would make TC less sympathetic tho?

Perhaps because nowdays, many people know that leprosy is treatable, but that it wasn't back in the day, and that people were greatly stigmatized because of it. Society's fear of HIV/AIDS is still very current, so perhaps people's prejudice of something that is very real for the world today would make them less sympathetic to TC.

I actually don't really believe this, but I was just trying to figure out how Vt53 could have arrived at this conclusion, and this is what I came up with.

Sum sui generis
Vs

[hierachy]

Luckily TC being dead has kinda let Donaldson off the hook in writing the third chrons (that sounds really weird, I mean: It's easier to write another story whan your main charicter is dead). My point is that if he was still in the "real" world, he would not be the same person as he was, being a leper would no longer "define him".

[Furls Fire]

I'm interested in how AIDS would make TC less sympathetic tho?

Perhaps because nowdays, many people know that leprosy is treatable, but that it wasn't back in the day, and that people were greatly stigmatized because of it. Society's fear of HIV/AIDS is still very current, so perhaps people's prejudice of something that is very real for the world today would make them less sympathetic to TC.

I actually don't really believe this, but I was just trying to figure out how Vt53 could have arrived at this conclusion, and this is what I came up with.

I can see where that may be where it is coming from. I don't necessarily believe it either tho. But, there are still so many misconceptions about HIV/AIDS out there, even after all the advances and research.

My brother identified with TC, which is what made this series his favorite set of books. He understood everything Covenant went thru, because he experienced the revulsion and hatred as well. The big difference was, my brother didn't let it change him from the person he was. He refused to view himself as just a virus. He used to say. "When he comes to just accept it, he will realize that he is much more then leprosy. But, he's locked in this frame of mind that leprosy is his fault." It took saving The Land from Foul to bring Covenant to that realization.

[DarkReflection]

I think maybe the original question mas misread by some.

The question in this thread was, did Donaldson hear the story from some leper that had these experiences himself. Or at least thought of them.

The answer and I can guarantee you this, is no.

The story was totally Donaldson, from beginning to end.

He didnt get any help from anyone, leper or otherwise.