The Damage issue

[Stead]

Well, SRD certainly loves to write about DAMAGE.

Everything and everyone gets damaged, and damaged, and damaged more. I was going to make a list of things he damages in stories, Like Orison, Starfare's Gem, Houseldon, but it kept going on and on until I realized that "everything" gets damaged in his books.

I've never seen an author use so much damage as a device. The more I read, the more damage I saw. From page 2 of LFB the damage began, and hasn't stopped since.

And his sense of damage always seems to be that there's no answer, no cure. It was pointed out to me last night again when I read this, from "The Real Story."

"She had a cabin-size dent in her side. Her steel skeleton was no longer true. One part of her nose looked like it had been hit with an impact-ram.

She could be repaired. He knew where to go to get her patched and welded and sealed: fixed. But she would never be the same again.

As he studied her wounds, Angus Thermopyle's eyes began to spill tears.""

He stated in the afterword that he put too much of himself in Angus, and that it made him afraid of exposing himself. And while I don't think he was really talking about a secret desire to rape and torture women, I do think that he has a bit of an obsession with damage.

It's hard to think of anything in his books which is not damaged, isn't it? He gets his readers to love something, and then he breaks it. He has his characters love something and he destroys it, or as he put it once, "gives him back something broken"

Has anybody made a list of every thing SRD has damaged in his works? I think it would be as huge as the books themselves.

Not that I'm complaining, I love his works, but it gets a bit depressing after a while. But I guess if the things damages could be fixed like we all hope then the work wouldn't be nearly as literary.

One good thing, he puts a few healers here and there to fix things., and heal things. But I wonder if his fear of being exposed as Thermopyle has something to do with this issue. He writes hope into the endings of stories, but maybe, as Angus does, he knows that once damaged, nothing will ever be the same again.

I thinks that's the thing that eats at me most when I read Donaldson.

[Loredoctor]

But at the same time it is empowering and uplifting - purely because his protaganists manage to life themselves up and do great things despite their pains and limitations. In my opinion, the damage makes them more heroic - a context many fantasy books lack.

[Avatar]

...In my opinion, the damage makes them more heroic - a context many fantasy books lack.

A good point, and one I agree with. Afterall, what's so wonderful about some pure and noble character doing pure and noble things? That's what they're meant to do.

Far more interesting/uplifting/whatever when someone damaged manages to overcome their own weakness/limitations and perform some great act. It's much more meaningful.

--Avatar

[Stead]

Maybe so. For the protagonist. I just get the impression that there's a sense of hopelessness to it, of permanent loss, like having a child who died.

Thermopyle (I've only read TRS so far, btw) made it seem that heroic deeds are done by cowards out of desperation, and some of the other stuff seems to strip everything from a character to see how much torture one can stand and stand, or how much loss, until you're broken at the core.

Instead of the protagonist, supporting characters like Lebbick and Trell get to me.

Ah, who knows?

[Loredoctor]

Good point about Thermopyle - but I think, in my opinion, he is a hero because he attempted to go beyond his needs (rape and murder) and redeem himself.

[Loredoctor]

Anyway, welcome to the Watch, Stead! Here's 1000 white gold dollars.

[Stead]

Well, thanks!
(I'll figure out what they're for eventually.)

I think Thermopyle was still sort of 'broken' into redeeming himself, by his loss, and by the damage to what he loved (his Bright Beauty and his fierce edge) which were both, again, damaged... through the story.

[Loredoctor]

Good point.
*Go to Shop above (options under the banner) and buy stuff!

[Myste]

That's such an interesting point. Everyone and everything is damaged. It makes an interesting parallel to one of my pet theories, that all of SRDs books are actually about howpeople become Real. Mostly, I think it has to do with chosing to act, whether the act is right or wrong--it's a volition thing.

What your question makes me wonder is this: Is "Damage" a starting place? Do we begin Damaged and then heal ourselves by becoming Real? Or is Damage itself part of the process?

[Variol Farseer]

To comment more briefly than usual, for I have twisted my elbow and it hurts to type:

The trouble, I find, with SRD's fixation is that damage is only one limitation on a person's power of achievement. Overcoming damage doesn't make one a hero; it simply restores the status quo. When I look at real people who accomplished heroic things, I see that they not only transcended whatever damage they had suffered, but overcame other failings as well: indecision, lack of skill, lack of persistence, lack of vision. The thing is that humans don't have decisiveness, skill, persistence, and vision as natural gifts, springing full-grown from their heads like Athena from Zeus. You can heal all the damage you want, but it won't give you those particular strengths. You have to develop those, usually by hard experience.

Grant that SRD is fixated on damage. Robert A. Heinlein was said to be fixated on competence. I find myself fixated on the process of becoming competent — not just healing, but growth.

[W.B.]

I'm curious about how exactly you'd define "real." Intuitively, it strikes a chord (it's seemed to me a lot of his characters have to go through some process at the end of which they decide to take action that is healing for themselves and helpful to their communities), but I'm not sure how to take it.

[Loredoctor]

To comment more briefly than usual, for I have twisted my elbow and it hurts to type:

The trouble, I find, with SRD's fixation is that damage is only one limitation on a person's power of achievement. Overcoming damage doesn't make one a hero; it simply restores the status quo. When I look at real people who accomplished heroic things, I see that they not only transcended whatever damage they had suffered, but overcame other failings as well: indecision, lack of skill, lack of persistence, lack of vision. The thing is that humans don't have decisiveness, skill, persistence, and vision as natural gifts, springing full-grown from their heads like Athena from Zeus. You can heal all the damage you want, but it won't give you those particular strengths. You have to develop those, usually by hard experience.

Grant that SRD is fixated on damage. Robert A. Heinlein was said to be fixated on competence. I find myself fixated on the process of becoming competent — not just healing, but growth.

I think SRD defines heroism by the fact that it takes an heroic effort to rise above the damage and do great acts. However, the means to do those acts is inherent in many of the characters - witness Morn and Warden Dios. The pain they go through is the hard experience you mention; the act of pushing themselves despite it or to overcome damage is a teaching experience.

[Stead]

on some other boards, the edit and quote buttons are switched In haste, I accidentally quoted myself instead of, well you know

[Stead]

(see I did it twoce, and can't find the delete button)

[Stead]

I understand the concept of 'no pain, no gain" to a character, and how some damages to a person can steel them to become heroic.

But a lot of the harm is still done to places and things,

Spoiler

(like Trell's desecration in Revelstone, which he brought back up in Runes)

, which would have to have some metaphorical meaning, because in his worlds, stone endures, it doesn't grow or become heroic, it remains and

Spoiler

(as we have seen in Runes,)

remembers.

I think the damage is presented as a sort of tragedy, or a reminder of tragedy in despite. Trell did desecration because he had been damaged by further damage done to his loves.

Linden's burden was the damage she carried from childhood.

Terisa Morgan's passivity was a damage as a result of the un-love of her parents.

Aside from the idea that damage makes one stronger, there also seems to be a consistent message that tragic damage only begets more as a consequence.

Especially in children. Damaged parents--further damaging their kids.

But he's also given Trell and Pitchwife both the power to heal broken stone, taking the permanence of damage away, even in immortal stone.

I wonder if these few incidences of permanent damage undone are just thrown in to remove some of the gloom.

I posted the question to the "gradual interview" as something like:

(paraphrased)

Is the damage a consequence of despite? The cause? Both? Or is it just a part of life?

Maybe he will offer a few words on all the damage himself.

Maybe it's just the curse of the perfectionist, you tend to notice the smallest flaws or loss as a nagging tragic event.

When I was about 3, my dad took me fishing for the first time. One of my bobbers (the little red and white floating plastic balls that you hook to your line) got loose and was lost. I've never cried harder than I did when I watched that little bobber floating away from me into the Chesapeake Bay. I could see it going, but I couldn't reach it as it drifted off.

We had a tackle box full of them, but it didn't matter, suddenly that little bobber was my best friend, and I would never see it again after it got so far away that it was lost among the whitecaps.

Finally we went home, and I never forgot that stupid bobber, for 30 years. That's how reading some of this stuff makes me feel.

S

[Avatar]

...I never forgot that stupid bobber, for 30 years. That's how reading some of this stuff makes me feel.

Great post man, and welcome aboard.

Just a quick tip though, if you could watch out for inadvertant Runes spoilers, (not that yours was a bad one, but), many folks, myself included, haven't had the opportunity to read it yet, so we'd appreciate it if you made them

Spoiler

spoilers.

I think that overcoming damage, of whatever nature, is simply the "tempering" process that our lives/souls/minds/whatever have to go through, in order to make us into the people we become.

All else aside, I admire the people who are able to do so more than the people who never had to. To be damaged, and still struggle on, is perhaps a true test of the indomitable spirit that makes us human. A "proving ground" if you will.

--Avatar

[Stead]

Thanks.

I went back and (sort of) fixed any mention of Runes with a spoiler tag.

I hope you get a chance to read it soon!

S

[Avatar]

Me too man, Me too!

And thanks for the edit, us poor Runes-Deprived people are grateful, (and envious, extremely envious!)

--A