Reading Runes: There’s No Sex in Your Violence

[yoursovain]

Lord Tolkein - surely going thru a tortured epic such as the chrons looking for emotional highs is a doubtful exercise? If you meant depth of emotional connection, well it is quite likely many would find Linden painful but the common lack of any real sympathy or identification on this board with Linden is worrying. Especially worrying when TC, no saint in the patience department, quite clearly managed to be moved by her and want to help/understand/trust her.

This woman was locked in the room with her blood-spurting dying father and then hounded by her narcissistic dying mother into killing her...I felt for her deeply on many occasions and especially when in a delusional state in TOT she almost killed a dying haruchai, incurring their lasting distrust - echoing the distrust and blame she felt all her young life from her mother. Sure, her black moods (go figure) are tiring for her and others and she can be so indecisive, though no less than Covenant.

This is all no doubt presumptuous coming from someone rarely visiting this wondrous vibrant community of covenantors - but it seems like there is a lot of that obviously limited and stiff lack of empathy, dare I say macho blindness, so often seen in the Haruchai toward Linden. They mistrusted Covenant too, but he also did grand tricks with his white gold, something these warriors understand. Mind you, I've never been much into all that swords, sandals, magic [insert] hoohaa - it's the metaphysics and dark psychology that drew me to SRD.

I would finally mention that it is unlikely that SRD has foregrounded Linden to the degree he has in the 2nd chrons and in Runes just to show up other 'interesting' characters - that is literary poverty indeed - either on the part of the reader or writer.

If SRD has done this unlikely strategy, then in spite of himself I found Linden painfully real and moving. I look forward to see if her hard won courage helps her to finally overcome those dark shades of parents throughout the last chrons.

At the end of the day everybody makes their own choices and emotional identifications, but failing to emotionally identify at all with such a major character either practically casts doubt on the craft/spirit of SRD or the emotional receptivity of the reader - while SRD is far from perfect, my money has to be on the failings of the reader in this case.

I'm not trying to offend anyone - I do care about this stuff and wanted to offer the possibility of a more emotional connection to a major character in the TC chrons - after all, failure of empathy with weakness, in others or within oneself, IMHO lies at the real heart of many of the tragedies in the chrons...

[CovenantJr]

This woman was locked in the room with her blood-spurting dying father and then hounded by her narcissistic dying mother into killing her ... dare I say macho blindness ... it's the metaphysics and dark psychology that drew me to SRD

I too was compelled to continue the Chronicles because of the psychological element, and it is primarily that same element that elevates the Chronicles to the status of my all-time favourite work of fiction. But Linden just means nothing to me. It could be because Covenant reminds me of myself, and Linden doesn't; it could be because Linden's suffering is more bludgeoning and less insidious than Covenant's; it could be because I find it hard to understand Linden's commitment to futility. It could be one or several of many things, all I can say with certainty is Linden just doesn't draw me in or make me feel in the way Covenant does.

At the end of the day everybody makes their own choices and emotional identifications ... my money has to be on the failings of the reader in this case

These two statements seem contradictory, and I take a small quantity of umbrage at the suggestion that not empathising with Linden is a failing. I don't deny that many people are moved by her, and I don't attempt to criticise or decry that. I don't understand it because I don't experience it, but that doesn't mean I expect no-one to feel that way about her. With such a diversity of people in the world (and in the global microcosm of Kevin's Watch) surely it's not so hard to accept that some people are just so inherently different to Linden that they can't identify with her at all. The same applies to Covenant or any other character.

[High Lord Tolkien]

I likes what I likes.

Lord Tolkein

That's *High* Lord to you, pal!

surely going thru a tortured epic such as the chrons looking for emotional highs is a doubtful exercise?

???
Are you saying that emotional highs are lacking in the Chronicles?
Here are some of my favorites that had me exhilarated:

Troy weilding the WG to save Elena
Lord Mhoram's victory
Mhoram sharing the secret of the RoD with the other Lords.
TC taking the Krill from Glimmermere
"Nom"
"Can you hear me!"
"Don't you understand that I love you?"
"That touched Covenant as the ruks of the Rides had not"
Sunder killing Troy

I could go on and on but you'll notice that Linden won't be in any that I list.
She's a nonentity to me.
Necessary only to enrich the other characters, imho.
She herself, as a character (to me anyway)

Spoiler

SUCKS

But maybe we differ on what we consider "emotional".

[yoursovain]

HIGH Lord Tolkein and Covenant Jr: I accept that it is highly unlikely or desirable that everyone identify with a character like Linden - I only went on my rant since it seems so very few posters here, who obviously love SRD's epic, do in fact identify with her. I did have in mind many other discussions I have read throughout Kevin's Watch when I made these comments. My frustration just blurted out here!

My comments about failings of empathy were just to highlight why Linden is so important in the chrons and emphasise how it is difficult to maintain a coherent positive position on the chrons if such a major character, one SRD must value (for reasons I for one understand), is found to be dull, painful, empty etc.

High Lord Tolkein: I do share the wonderment and emotional highs in many of the examples you mention and I agree with you that there are many more. Without these all the ruin and despair would mean little/be too painful. I just meant to highlight that emotional lows, the old hardwon beauty/triumph gained so expensively, dominates the chrons and a search for triumphant heroics is better served with more traditional fantasy fare.

Apologies for overstressing dark emotionalism at the expense of the amazing highs in the chrons, but aside from genuinely wanting to share the real substance of a central character in my favourite piece of writing, I also unfortunately share too much of old covenant's tendency towards extremism!!

[yoursovain]

Covenant Jr: one more thing about what I mean by empathy. Empathy is often confused with sympathy. The latter refers to those things we share with others and can identify with. Empathy means putting yourself in someone else's shoes, often quite a difficult process if there is little that is sympathetic or understood in that person. Harassing people to do so never works and it was silly for me to do so, especially if I really wished to show Linden's shoes to look more appealing or at least necessary to walk most fully thru the chrons.

[IrrationalSanity]

Hi Everyone,

I guess I am a member of the elite "I like Linden" club! . I don't have the time right now to do the soul-searching needed to write an essay detailing why, but consider this: in many ways she as a person is exactly the opposite of Covenant. He is outwardly focused, she is focused within. In sea creatures, Linden is a sponge, Covenant is an urchin. She sees the problems around her and takes them into herself to resolve, while he punctures them on his spines.

[CovenantJr]

Covenant Jr: one more thing about what I mean by empathy. Empathy is often confused with sympathy. The latter refers to those things we share with others and can identify with. Empathy means putting yourself in someone else's shoes, often quite a difficult process if there is little that is sympathetic or understood in that person. Harassing people to do so never works and it was silly for me to do so, especially if I really wished to show Linden's shoes to look more appealing or at least necessary to walk most fully thru the chrons.

I appreciate your grace.

I understand that Linden is necessary to the story, and I wouldn't remove her - but that doesn't mean I have to like her as a character.

in many ways she as a person is exactly the opposite of Covenant. He is outwardly focused, she is focused within

I would actually put that the other way round. Linden seems to me to focus on the obstacles she faces in her task at the expense of almost all else. Covenant, on the other hand, wrestles with himself at all times - as demonstrated by his myriad "bargains". I would have to say I find Covenant much more "internal" than Linden.

[I'm Murrin]

Perhaps we can say that Covenant projects his internal conflicts into the external events surrounding him, while Linden's internal struggles tend to be reflections of those in the outside world. Covenant imposes himself upon the world; Linden lets the world impose upon her.

[IrrationalSanity]

I think Murrin has the idea. Let's discount my "inner/outer focus", which is probably an artifact of too little coffee (note the posting time), and instead consider my sea creature analogy - Linden-sponge and Covenant-urchin.

[yoursovain]

Woohoo! Another Linden-lover raises their head above the trenches! Good to see some Irrational Sanity!

Murrin: nicely put - this does focus things. It is this put upon/done-to quality of Linden that must turn off many of the more robust readers. It is this vulnerable, helpless quality in Linden that I was hinting needed some empathy - difficult empathy in that no one likes to feel helpless or even accept how deep these feelings flow in all of us (back to childhood etc) - thus limited acceptance or experience of this helplessness equals limited empathy. Of course me being a miserable bastard helps my empathy in this and despite having a cow in earlier posts, I guess its a good thing that many don't have to deal with such nasty helplessness as the likes of Linden.

[amanibhavam]

It may be that part of the resentment towards Linded comes from the feeling that she "stole" the story from TC in the second chronicles. I certainly felt a bit that way when I first read it; I mean, come on, we had Covenant struggling his way outside and inside towards a magnificent achievement (which is also no small feat of SRD) - from a self-pitying, obstinate, hard-headed jerk he became somebody to whom we could relate. His Land became Our Land, we grieved for every blade of grass that got lost or destroyed, we felt his every little hurt or injury in our souls.
Then she came and it seemed that in all likelihood SRD wanted to transfer a great part of what rightly belonged to TC onto her - she actually came to be the Land's healer, didn't she? TC made it possible by self-sacrifice, but it was she who received the fun part, to wield the Staff and recreate the Land...
And also, how could she deny to realize that TC loved her all along, with every action of him centered on Linden, Linden, Linden?

Now I am in the middle of rereading the Second Chronicles for an umpteenth time and I must say that Linden improves with rereads. Her past, her inner darkness is truly something that would devastate anybody (how does one live with the thought that he/she actually killed his/her mother? regardless of the circumstances which are hardly a consolation to a child) . And I am a medic; I know what it means when someone works in the shadow of death precisely because of his fear of death. But this is neither here nor there; what I wanted to say that I became to like or rather understand Linden with time - and now actually it's the Haruchai who look like a bunch of jerks to me many times with their arrogance.

With that I agree that Runes lack certain - I would not say depth, rather emotional drive. It is characteristic of SRD's writing that he is very cruel to his own creations; he puts his characters to the very extremes, than leans back in his armchair and examines their reaction to their situation (just have a look at the Gap if you want to see to what extremes can characters be driven and/or put). Somehow, in Runes, Linden is being spared. Somehow, the extremes seem to fall on the supporting characters of the story; Anele, Esmer. And again somehow, I feel, this distancing (us from the emotional impact of events and inner feeilings of tha main protagonist) is intentional - I was nearly driven mad at the scene with the kresh when Anele chooses to pour out his misery and story in the middle of the attack, the whole situation seemd so surreal to me, a horde of kresh lurching themselves onto the company, the fight almost as a backdrop to the scene of Anele and Linden having their little conversation; I could not help feeling that SRD wanted to achieve something with this writing technique.
And I do feel that Linden (or, rather, the story) still needs to commit some serious blunder, a crime, a fatal mistake; something that keeps her occupied to redeem herself from for the rest of the books. Then we will have our emotional story big time. At least, I trust we will.

[Warmark]

Woohoo! Another Linden-lover raises their head above the trenches! Good to see some Irrational Sanity!

BANG!!!!
<Shoots those Linden-Lovers>

[CovenantJr]

*grabs a rifle*

[dlbpharmd]

Well said, amani!

[wayfriend]

The Second Chronicles was about sharing the burden of saving the Land (author's own paraphrased words). This would necessitate equal time as protagonist for Linden, right? So are some people sticking on the very point which is the reason for the Second Chronicles - sharing the story?

I think that the Final Chronicles will be about something else. So I think that we'll see less Linden.

I now have quitely subscribed to the idea, mentioned by someone in this thread, that some of Rune's 'distance' comes from the fact that we're waiting for the central character to arrive. And that SRD is spending a long time winding up for the (as yet unthrown) first pitch. (Although I still find the author somewhat at fault for not doing as good of a job.)

To those who have suggested it: the first books have never, ever, lacked in emotional highs; to suggest that this book follows a pattern is IMO wrong. LFB gave us the battle of Soaring Woodhelven and the Summoning of the Ranyhyn; TWL gave us the Soothtell and the Grieve. There has been no trouble reaching an emotional peak in the first book as far as TC is concerned. (The Gap, yes, I see it.)

[HighLordKevin]

My feelings about Runes after reading it were that, while I do agree with other posters that it seemed to be lacking something, that it seemed detached and to a point almost clinical, I also felt something that I never felt while reading the first or second chronicles. When I read Runes, I felt a real sense of dread. I felt like something big is about to happen, bigger than anything we've encountered so far. That what happened to our protagonists in the first and second chronicles is small potatoes compared to what's just over the horizon. And a sense of hope, that there are far more possibilities than there have ever been before. So I think that a little blandness is probably the most appropriate approach, it gives what's coming that much more impact when it does happen, and that's why I still read these stories after more than 20 years.

[danlo]

I feel the dread too...give SRD a break, he's going back 20 years to recreate--I thought Runes was a helluva "warmup" book after all those years.

[lurch]

...Since this thread is stiil alive..Try this on for size...I have recently proposed that SRD may be setting up the reader ..to become Lord Foul...The reception of Linden by some here..looks to be very similar to the " you're not really important to me" ,,disdain,,reflected in Foulekers discussions with Linden in Runes.,,"You are already mine".....Again..Linden as the reader may have already been successfully implemented by the author..........MEL

[Nerdanel]

I never liked Linden in the Second Chronicles all that much, but now she really grew on me. Personality-wise I'm definitely more Linden than Covenant. (The minor character Lord Amatin sounds like the true the best fit.)

I think it was amazing and one of the definite high points of the book to read about Linden using the Staff of Law before Revelstone. It reminded me of Gandalf fighting Nazgûl, in fact. Linden, you have come a long way.

On the subject matter of the Demondim, the number one !!!!! moment in the book was the first time we got a description of the Demondim, which also meant that they would appear in the series. I had actually given a bit of thought to what the Demondim etc. were based on the scant earlier information. I think I was imagining eyeless quasi-Elves or something. Needless to say, they turned out drastically different. I wonder if Donaldson was thinking about these Demondim in LFB when they were first mentioned.

I think the battles with the Demondim were sufficiently threatening (I like horror elements), but there was a definite feel of Reserved to the Next Book floating around. A third !!!! moment to me was when the nature of the threat was revealed. As betrayals go, that was pretty huge. I thought we wouldn't see any Demondim until the fabric of timespace had become more noticeably frayed.

[dlbpharmd]

which also meant that they would appear in the series.

I remember thinking "Now why are we talking about Demondim?"