The Old Man

[amanibhavam]

Stephen R. Donaldson wrote:

If anything, the tradition I was drawing on was Christian (because of my background in fundamentalist Christianity, not because I am in any useful sense a believer): the Trinity, God in Three Persons. Except I obviously wasn't thinking of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. More like Creator, Destroyer, and Holy Ghost (wild magic). Or Creator, Destroyer, and--what shall we call Covenant as the protagonist of the drama?--Acolyte. But you're quite right about the "shared identity" theme. I was explicitly thinking of the Creator, the Despiser, and wild magic as aspects of Covenant himself. And the part of himself which he denies--wild magic, his own personal power to assign meaning to his life and experiences--is the part which must mediate his internal conflicts (the struggle between the creative and destructive sides of his nature). Hence the thematic development from the first to the second "Chronicles." In the first, Covenant opposes his--dare I say it?--Dark Side and wins (an expensive--and temporary--victory). In the second, he surrenders to his Dark Side, and thereby gains the power to contain it (another expensive--and temporary--victory). "The Last Chronicles" will explore this theme further as Covenant's quest to become whole continues. (Linden Avery is also on a quest to become whole, but hers takes an entirely different form.)

My general view of the kind of fantasy I write is that it's a specialized form of psychodrama. Putting the issue as simply as I can: the story is a human mind turned inside out, and all of the internal forces which drive that mind are dramatized *as if* they were external characters, places, and events. This is easier to see in the first "Chronicles" because the story is simpler: the Land and everyone in it is an external manifestation of Covenant's internal journey/struggle. Everything is more complex in "The Second Chronicles" because there are *two* minds being turned inside out. Which means that there are actually three stories at work: Covenant's, Linden's, and the interaction between the two.

<sigh> And if I wanted to say more than *that* on the subject, I would write dissertations instead of novels.

[Dragonlily]

Good catch from the Gradual Interview, Amani. (Or Amy, if you prefer )

This is from EPIC FANTASY:

Put simply, fantasy is a form of fiction in which the internal crises or conflicts or processes of the characters are dramatized as if they were external individuals or events. Crudely stated, this means that in fantasy the characters meet themselves -- or parts of themselves, their own needs/problems/exigencies -- as actors on the stage of the story, and so the internal struggle to deal with those needs/problems/exigencies is played out as an external struggle in the action of the story.

[CovenantJr]

Indeed, Amy. But I read that as basically saying that (obviously) the whole story is awash with metaphor, rather than that the Creator was physically manifested by Covenant within the story.

Btw, Joy - calling Amanibhavam "Amy" is a hang over from the prehistoric ages of KW...it took me a while to realise Amy is male

[amanibhavam]

well, I read those words "external manifestation" as SRD confirming the Land-not-real-just-TC's-inside-goings-on-externalised theory

mind you, I've always been on the the-Land-must-be-real-it's-so-beautiful and Creator/Foul-are-independent-of-TC side, just that those words of SRD seem to contradict this

[Revan]

I grow weary of paradox's.

Yes, I prefer my doxes one at a time, too. A pair of them is too much of a good thing.

LOL! Yeah... good point...

[CovenantJr]

well, I read those words "external manifestation" as SRD confirming the Land-not-real-just-TC's-inside-goings-on-externalised theory

I can understand that, but I prefer to think he was talking about an "external manifestation" in terms of the whole concept, rather than the characters and whatnot actually "inside" the story.

mind you, I've always been on the the-Land-must-be-real-it's-so-beautiful and Creator/Foul-are-independent-of-TC side, just that those words of SRD seem to contradict this

I refuse to decide whether I believe the Land is real or not. It makes no difference. IMO, that was the conclusion TC appeared to reach at the end of the First Chrons, and having effectively been through the same emotional ordeals as TC I drew that conclusion too.

[Dragonlily]

Given SRD's predeliction for paradox, I think both are true. I would guess that it's not possible to understand what SRD is saying while choosing only one answer as true.

Sort of like knowing that your chair is more space than atoms, but sitting in it anyway. (And don't go into a thing about energy fields for me, it's just a metaphor.)

Besides, it's fiction.

[wayfriend]

Putting the issue as simply as I can: the story is a human mind turned inside out, and all of the internal forces which drive that mind are dramatized *as if* they were external characters, places, and events.

Put simply, fantasy is a form of fiction in which the internal crises or conflicts or processes of the characters are dramatized as if they were external individuals or events.

See, now this exactly what I was afraid someone was going to point to!

(Actually, I'm rather relieved that there's nothing more than this.)

This is a description of the construction of a story; or, as CovenantJr [Would that be TJ for short? ] points out, its just stating that there is a great big metaphor involved.

But this is not the same as an in-story plot development, wherein the Land turns out to be some magical psychotherapy.

Doesn't anyone else think that that would be an utterly cheap resolution to ten volumes of great story? It's on the same level as "and then he woke up, and it was all a dream", except perhaps executed a tad more scholarly.

Not to mention: if, as the reader, we are to give up any quest to determine if the Land is "real" or not, wouldn't we in the end be confronted with the absolute knowledge that it wasn't real, if it ends in this way?

My question: Is there any correlation between the onset of Covenant's leprosy and the enacting of the Ritual of Desecration?

The specific detail that you're asking about never actually crossed my mind. It's embarrassing, really, since it seems so obvious now that you raise it.

Now, how could we have statements like this if in-story the Land was a manifestation of Covenant's soul/psyche/thing?

Yes, I remember saying that. And yes, I meant it. But it doesn't mean what it sounds like it means (I'm often deliberately misleading when people ask me about such things), and I have no intention of explaining what I meant. My purposes will become clear in the fullness of time.

Remember he seeks always to mislead you ...

[Cate]

Well, I just have to put in my 2 cents.....
For me, the land is real, and here's why......
The old man, of course, who appeared to both Covenant and Linden......then the woman who was the singer, remember, Susie Thurston, who called him Berek......
Well, what if they were both people of the land or even one of the Lords--who wanted desperately to contact Covenant, then Linden.

The spiritual parallels, (forget church dogmas, just thinking my own thoughts...) TC's journey through time.....the creator, the despiser (a type of satan),
good and evil, weapons and tools that really work and triumph=white gold, rhuks, lomillialor, orcrest, the krill, etc.....all pictures and types of knowledge, wisdom, understanding, and spiritual might.
And yes, Darth, I know paradoxes make you weary. That's why you can't spend any time trying to REASON them out. You have to accept that they exist and let the spiritual mind analyze and program it in, which it does in a language we cannot speak---at this time.
Not to sound new-agey or way way out......just finding my way.
SRD connected many dots for me with the Chronicles. I just let my mind go and allow myself the freedom to be a little childish and "believe", and then I start finding lots of tidbits of knowledge about myself, the spiritual world, God, His eternal design, and where I am in the big picture, and that all this has a very specific and wonderful purpose after all.
No other writer has ever given me this or made me feel this way.

[CovenantJr]

Ah, it's one of the many great things about the Chronicles - we all gain different things from reading these books. I would be most disappointed if I was able to draw a solid conclusion about the Land's existence

[Seafoam Understone]

To me the Land and it's People are real... because I love them so much.
Nuff said!

[amanibhavam]

To me the Land and it's People are real... because I love them so much.
Nuff said!

Oh, do not take me wrong... for me the Land is more real sometimes than my own surroundings. Other times it's just real. How could it be otherwise?

[danlo]

bump

[ThistleDown]

I guess I always looked at the parallel between TC and the Beggar.

There was a connection between the "Heros" of the Land and the suffering ones in the "Real World". Even Hile Troy fits this as a disabled, isolated throw-away of the real word. Yet in The Land, he is a man of significance.

It would be as if Mhoram came to our world and worked at a Starbucks.

[Dragonlily]

Even Hile Troy fits this as a disabled, isolated throw-away of the real word. Yet in The Land, he is a man of significance.

I wouldn't dismiss easily a man who was capable of working in a think tank despite not being able to see either his problems or his reference materials.

Yes, he had an ultimately disastrous need to prove himself, but that was him, not the people who thought he was smart enough to solve their problems -- in both worlds.

[Xar]

I agree. As for the fact pointed out by Thistledown, I'd prefer to think of it in another way:

The people chosen by the Old Man (who, at least to me, is obviously the Creator) are always people who need the Land to heal themselves due to moral or spiritual illnesses that gnaw at them (like Linden's detachment from the world due to her childhood, or Covenant's need for human contact and his rage at the helplessness of his situation). This is no coincidence: from a selfish point of view, these are the people who are most likely to find healing in the Land (and therefore, those who are afterwards most likely to defend it). But also, they are those who are best equipped to fight Despite (because they know it, and they know despair).

On the contrary, Hile Troy wasn't chosen by the Creator, but summoned accidentally: we have no evidence the Old Man ever drew close to him or talked to him in any way. At the very least, if the Creator chose him, it was a choice made hastily, and only due to his knowledge of tactics (and such a hasty choice I can't believe, so I prefer to stick with the idea that Hile Troy wasn't chosen by the Creator at all). Atiaran snatched him blindly into the Land, and so he wasn't made of the same stuff as Covenant and Linden, morally speaking at least.

As for the Old Man himself: that he is the Creator is strongly implied at the end of the First Chronicles (meaning that the only evidence we lack is actually seeing him at work), when Covenant is returning to his world and he offers him gifts to reward him. That the Old Man isn't a normal man in Covenant's world is strongly implied in the Second Chronicles, instead (when he fakes a cardiac arrest in order to "test" Linden, and when he leaves her and vanishes where he had no way to do so): therefore, I prefer to think that he takes the shape of the beggar only as part of the test he puts his chosen ones through (remember that Covenant was moved by the sight of the beggar at the beginning of the First Chronicles, exactly because he felt a certain kinship with him; and that the appearance of a distinguished gentleman on Haven Farm would have been a little incongruous ), and/or as a way to manifest his solidarity towards the destitute and those who suffer.

[ThistleDown]

I guess I perhaps mis-spoke. Obviously a best selling author (TC), a problem-solving prodigy (HT) and a Doctor (LA) are all significant. But dispite what they contribute, or do, they are isolated in a social way. Even if what they do contributes to society, etc. what they ARE in terms of emotional connection to others is significantly less.

Even if society would miss a Doctor, because of what she does, she is isolated in terms of having not family, friends, or real impact on the people around her.

It was always my impression that she came to town to sort of hide - but not having to admit she was hiding.

I always wondered a bit about while Hile Troy ended up in the land if he was not picked by the Creator. Is it just coincidence that someone so flawed and talented, who was exactly the right person, was summonded. It probably would have turned out different if someone like Ron Howard were summoned instead. It seemed to me that the summoning spell must have been pretty specific and there had to be a fundamental connection between Hile Troy and TC for Troy to have been substituted. Anyone have any insight?

[Aleksandr]

I always wondered a bit about while Hile Troy ended up in the land if he was not picked by the Creator.

I never really thought about this before, but it's a good question. I think it's implied that Atiarian's own despair misguided the summoning, but couldn't she (or Foul, if he was behind her attempt) have at least perceived that HT lacked a white gold ring? What about HT would have attracted Atiaran's summoning since he was not very much like TC in any way execpt in having a disability.

[ThistleDown]

One possible explanation would be in the camp as characters as part of TC himself.

As TC is powerful, but unable and unwilling to truly help, perhaps HT is the yang to that yin. Here is a guy that is willing and able to help, but lacks the true power to make the difference. Of course he does make some difference, but not the true defeat of Lord Foul.

It also sort of follows that LA is the healing that TC desires, but is unable to effect. Perhaps finally he is able to make use of that ability and heal himself and the Land.

[Xar]

I have to disagree, mainly because while Hile Troy could be written off as "part of the dream", Linden clearly isn't; plus, during the Second Chronicles, Linden's and Covenant's reasons for being there are slightly different - and although they are related, it's Linden's reason which depends on Covenant's, and not the opposite (defeating Foul gives her the chance to heal the Land, but healing the Land wouldn't have been possible if Foul wasn't defeated first).

Therefore, it is far more probable that the Old Man chooses people who need a spiritual healing - "moral lepers", in a way, to use an expression used in the Chronicles themselves. That is, people who are fundamentally good, but who need to be healed with a healing the Land can provide, be it purpose, truth, health, or whatever.

I think Atiaran's summoning of Hile Troy was basically tainted by her despair; I can't shake the thought she reached out blindly in the "real" world and snatched the first person she could catch. Remember that Atiaran's summoning wasn't performed with the Staff of Law, and that we have only two more examples of such an unusual summoning:

1) TC's summoning by Mhoram (a High Lord, together with the other Lords) and subsequently by Foamfollower and Triock (in which Triock had to use lomillialor and Foamfollower had to provide him with strength);

2) TC's and LA's summoning at the beginning of the Second Chronicles.

I would add that in both cases, TC had to be on the brink of death for the summoning to work (Linden wasn't, but she was sort of "whisked off" with Covenant's summoning - since it's a safe bet to think that Foul didn't want to summon her, and only later had to plan for her presence).

So, I suppose that for a summoning to work without the Staff of Law (so, Atiaran's, for example), the summoned person must be on the brink of death, and Hile Troy fits the description. Furthermore, we are never explicitly told WHY she wanted to summon Covenant; it's implied she wanted him to be punished for what he had done to her daughter, but maybe she also wanted to summon him to help the Land, either consciously or not. Probably, Atiaran just tried to reach for someone on the brink of death and whose "illness" the Land could heal, or something like that, while he (hanging from the window in a burning house) was desperately wishing to be somewhere else.

This in turn suggests that there was something else guiding the summoning... perhaps the Creator did choose Hile Troy after all, and HT simply failed the Creator's expectations; or maybe he was chosen by Foul exploiting Atiaran's despair, and only by chance (and thanks to the unexpected aid of the Forestal) was he able to prevent Fleshharrower's army from winning. The only other alternative is that he was chosen randomly - which could be, as far as we know, and maybe the Land was just lucky that random chance chose Hile Troy instead of someone else.