What is the Land?

[Zarathustra]

The Land exists, regardless of the physical reality thereof.

I agree, in a sense. I like to think of it in the same way that Joseph Campbell describes mythology. Mythology isn't just the naive explanations of physical reality by uneducated, primitive people. In other words, they are not incorrect LITERAL descriptions of the world. Instead, mythology is a metaphorical, narrative understanding of real features of the world. It is a language, a figurative way to refer to real features of our being. Usually, these features are fundamental truths of our existence: birth, coming of age, participating in the food chain, dying, etc. Just because some people referred to a Beast Lord (or something similar; I forgot the exact phrase) who calls forth new generations of animals for the hunters to kill--this doesn't mean that these people actually believed in this Beast Lord. It was their way of describing the mystery of the endless dance of life, the new generations replacing the old, the continuous supply of food that sustained their existence.

I think of the Land in the same way. It's metaphorical, mythical narrative to describe universal, existential truths. This distinction is important because it's not pure "fantasy," but not literally real, either. It's inbetween.

[CovenantJr]

. “Covenant committed a crime in a "dream" and he had to deal with the consequences in the "dream" - not to mention the internal consequences stemming from his own conscience.”

Yes, but the guilt branches out into this world, too (when he's here). So he's not just paying for it within the "dream." Do you ever feel guilty for things you do in dreams? I don't. If you don't either, then you've got to admit that Covenant's solution is inadequete, or else we both don't take our dreams seriously enough.

I have had some lasting emotional reactions to dreams. Not guilt, since I haven't done anything to warrant it, nor the familiar fear incited by nightmares. I have kind of flurries of dreams that, at times, are so real (not just vivid, if anything dimmer than most dreams) and have so much consistency of certain elements between them that they feel more...persuasive...than reality.

The land is real. If it's not then it's pretty weird how what Foul does can affect what happens in the 'real' world.

Ah, but does he affect real objects in the objective world, or does he just affect people's perceptions? If so, then he is still "in their heads." Sure this may cause them to perform certain actions in the real world, but this could be described as their own internal Despite affecting reality, not a magical being from another dimension.

And we don't know he's affecting reality at all. We see some nutters and TC/Linden's perception of eyes etc. No-one in TC's "real" world stands there and talks to Foul, nor does Foul rampage down the high street, with people fleeing in terror. Only TC and Linden are definitely aware of him.

[wayfriend]

I know that texts can have their own life and their author's own interpretation might not necessarily be the true and only interpretation, but SRD does say something to the effect in the GI that the Land is essentially a projection of Covenant's psyche.

Yes, but I think that's true only in a literary sense. (That is, it is a literary phenomenon, like a character foil or a metaphor.)

In terms of the story's internal logic, the Land cannot be a projection of Covenant's psyche. He died. The Land didn't disappear. In fact, the Land preserved Covenant's spirit which would otherwise have gone to the great beyond. The evidence is that the Land is more able to project Covenant than Covenant is able to project the Land!

[hierachy]

The land is real. If it's not then it's pretty weird how what Foul does can affect what happens in the 'real' world.

Ah, but does he affect real objects in the objective world, or does he just affect people's perceptions? If so, then he is still "in their heads." Sure this may cause them to perform certain actions in the real world, but this could be described as their own internal Despite affecting reality, not a magical being from another dimension.

And we don't know he's affecting reality at all. We see some nutters and TC/Linden's perception of eyes etc. No-one in TC's "real" world stands there and talks to Foul, nor does Foul rampage down the high street, with people fleeing in terror. Only TC and Linden are definitely aware of him.

I don't buy it. There's too many things that don't make sense if the land isn't real. If an alternate explanation isn't provided in the last chronicles (which I highly doubt there will be), then by my standards there is more than enough evidence of the land to form a pretty conclusive decision as to its existence.

The whole paradox of the land's existence is obsolete by the second chronicles, in my opinion.

[CovenantJr]

No no no! I will not be swayed!

[Zarathustra]

Yes, but I think that's true only in a literary sense. In terms of the story's internal logic, the Land cannot be a projection of Covenant's psyche. He died. The Land didn't disappear.

I've been toying with this distinction between "literary sense" and the story's internal logic, too, trying to decide exactly how to make sense of this wonderfully complex narrative. I think this is a useful distinction to make, however, I'm not sure your conclusion follows. The way I conceive the Land, it is not necessarily Covenant's psyche that is being symbolized, but rather a universal symbol for anyone's participation in the battle between hope and despair, love and despite. I hesitate to say it's a symbol for anyone's PSYCHE, because I think that the existential features symbolized transcend mere subjective experience (though they ARE experienced subjectively). They are more like general structures of experience, the necessary conditions for human experience to be possible. [This is a distinction found in phenomenological philosophers like Heidegger and Husserl.] It is impossible to live as a human in the world and NOT confront one's own mortality, one's one finitude, one's own temporality. Thus, there is a universal character to these "structures" of human experience. And therefore, the Land can stand for multiple internal landscapes, a kind of intersubjective realm.

[mystmaiden]

In all my readings of the series it has never once occured to me to actually question the reality of the Land.

It is real to me.
Anything else would break my heart.

myst

[Zarathustra]

While rereading TIW today, something occurred to me. Covenant's beard trick is kind of pointless. How would it prove anything to arrive back in the "real" world without a beard? If he accepts that his body is still there in the world while he's also in the Land, then isn't it obvious that the body which is walking around in the Land and growing the beard ISN'T THE SAME BODY as the one lying unconscious on the floor of his home? If they are not the same body, then there's no discrepancy in one growing a beard and the other not growing one.

Yeah, I know it sounds crazy. Two bodies? Look at it this way. During LFB, his body in the real world was first in the street, and then later in the hospital. No one ever claims they saw him disappear for a while. His body never went ANYWHERE. Just his mind.

Therefore, either he has one body for the real world and one for the Land (which is ridiculous), or he was never in the Land physically to begin with (which is what I've always claimed). Either way, his beard trick is pointless. Him ever considering that the Land is real is pointless. He doesn't need a way to prove it's a dream because he already knows his body never goes anywhere.

For me, this settles it. He couldn't have really gone to the Land as a physical place unless you accept that he has two bodies. Period.

[mickwalker]

JK Rowling freely admits to immitating authers she has read, I think voldermort is lord foul, i dont know why but reading harry potter reminds me of covernant, anyone else feel this way?

[Zarathustra]

More evidence to support my interpretation, straight from the GI:

A curiousity question - Have you ever during the creation of any of the Convenant novels written or contemplated a situation where one of the characters of the Land was transported to Convenant's world?

Thanks for your time.

Donaldson: I can honestly say, No. In fact, No, no, a thousand times no! That would be an absolute violation of the integrity of the stories I'm trying to tell.

So why would that be an "absolute violation?" Is it possible that it's because it would imply that the Land is real? Is it because metaphors only work one way, and to reverse them would be to confuse the map for the territory, the symbol with that symbolized? I think so. Mhoram can't appear in Covenant's world as a real, objective being because he isn't a literal, real, objective being.

Of course, this raises questions for the Creator/old man. Why is he "allowed" to be in Covenant's world without violating the integrity of the stories? Is it because he never appears in the Land? What does that say about him? That he's NOT a symbol within this fantasy myth world? Just an ordinary old man?

I think that this may be why SRD said his absence is the "mother of all spoilers." He is the key to understanding Donaldson's work--or maybe the one character who violates its integrity, a kind of keystone in the "Arch of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant," who has the power with his violation of narrative integrity to bring the whole thing crashing down--or bring the whole thing symbolically into our world. A whole other level of metaphor in which Thomas Covenant--a fictional character--escapes his own prison of literary fiction and "enters" our world.

Just a thought.

[drew]

I think what SRD means by "no!" to someone from the Land going to our world, is because that's not the story he wants to tell.

As a story, he has said 'The Land' is supposed to be the opposite of Leprosy. What a depressing story it would be to have someone from the anti-leprosy come to our world which is full of leprosy (not just the disease, but the mental and social leprosy that plauges the world).

AS for the deffinition of the land being the "the are found on the Map"; The glosery is just an index to help understand the literal meanings as they apply to the story, not the imagry that the author is trying to convey.


As for Mickwalker's question about Voldemort being like Lord Foul; I can't see it (although I haven't read the 6th book) Foul didn't turn evil. He IS evil, he doesn't just act evil; he is what evil is.
The Bloodguard call him Corruption, not The Corrupted

[Brinnor]

I seem to remember in the Covenant/Creator conversation at the end of TPTP, the Creator said that he had only created The Land and not the real world. But he had some influence over events in the real world.

Spoiler

ie restoring Covenant's health from the horse-serum they injected him with to counteract the snake venom.

This is consistant with the Land being part of Covenant's psyche (or the shared psyche).
Only Covenant and Linden ever directly interact with him, so he could be merely "imagined".
In the same way that they both have their inner despiser, the creator could be just another aspect of the mind.

Spoiler

Covenant's body is suffering from an allergy to the serum. The creator, being part of Covenant, cures this by exerting the will to live, as opposed to any supernatural feat. Which is again consistant with him being a mental projection

As for Covenant living after his death, isn't it said that nobody truly dies as long as someone remembers them?

[wayfriend]

I'll throw in this recent GI quote, which I'm not sure what it implies.

Ken Zufall: In response to another question, you said:

"And remember, I'm dealing with a "reality" which is inextricably bound to the mind(s) of my protagonist(s). According the rules I've created, we simply *can't* have the Land without Covenant/Linden. It really would be cheating if I suddenly announced, "OK, I was just kidding about that whole maybe-it's-not-real, you-are-the-white-gold shtick. Let's pretend it never happened." "

I had assumed that the reality of the Land was affirmed by people other than Covenant crossing over to it from "our" world (Troy, Linden, Covenant's wife, Linden's son, [forgive me, I'm horrible at recalling names /blush] Roger). I mean, the question of reality was always one for Covenant; bringing other people into the Land--especially Linden and the others crossing over without Covenant at the beginning of RotE--seems to verify that the Land has a separate existence without Covenant.

Is this not a safe assumption? Is there something in the text I've missed that lends credence to Covenant's earlier--and understandable--doubts about the Land's existence?
_________________________

In most obvious ways, of course, you're quite correct: the story has left the whole issue of "reality" (is-it-or-isn't-it) far behind. But everything that I'm doing is still built on the foundation of Covenant's dilemmas and attitudes: Covenant's mind (his "psychodrama," if you will) provides the basis, the essential presuppositions, for everything that I've constructed since the first chapter of "Lord Foul's Bane." In "The Second Chronicles," I *think* I succeeded at expanding the foundation to include Linden's mind/heart/journey. But she and Covenant remain the only characters who really do provide a foundation. Troy doesn't count because a) he completely accepts the Land "as is" with little or no emotional baggage, apart from his inclination to repeat Kevin's mistakes (so in that sense he "reflects" the Land, he doesn't "generate" it, if you see what I mean), and b) he isn't in the story long enough to carry the narrative weight that Linden and Covenant do. And people like Roger and Joan don't count simply because they aren't POV characters: they don't provide the mind(s) through which the reality of the Land is created.

Beneath the surface--OK, perhaps *far* beneath the surface--it remains true that we can't have the Land without Covenant and/or Linden.

(03/17/2006)

[Nerdanel]

I remembered I had read this quote and managed to find it:

Peter Purcell: I was interested in your response to the magic Mordant's Need vs. magic in the Land. As an author, you are focused on the *story* you're relaying and magic-used-as-a-metaphor. As a reader we get absorbed in the story but fall in love with the *universe / world* you've created. I think that's why you get so many questions on the "rules of the WORLD" that are irrelevant to your author's perspective that the *story* should be the only focus. [Although you have said that maintaining internal consistency is important to you so that it does not distract from the *story*.]

Am I on track? Does it matter?! (smile)

-----------------------

Peter
I don't consider "rules of the world" questions irrelevant at all. But I get confused (and sometimes exasperated) when the questions don't appear to respect one vital distinction: we're talking about "rules of the world THAT I MADE UP." If the questions don't pertain to, or aren't validated by, material contained within the boundaries of the story, I can't answer them.

(And here we have another interesting difference between the "Covenant" books and "Mordant's Need". In "Covenant," the Land clearly exists in a different kind or order of reality than Covenant's "real world". In the Platonic sense, the Land is *more* real than Covenant's "real world." So characters from Covenant's "real world" can expand into the Land, but characters from the Land cannot shrink into Covenant's "real world". But in "Mordant's Need" the differing realities accessible by Imagery are all pretty much equal, or are "real" in the same way: they may run by different rules, but the substance of one can exist and function fully in another.)

(09/08/2004)

I wonder if it will be finally revealed that the "real world" is the place that really is the dreamworld or shadow of the Land's Earth. There is some evidence for that, most prominently several transition effects that have the Land's reality as more solid or louder than the "real world"'s, so much that people in the "real world" cannot see or hear the Land.

[Zarathustra]

Wayfriend and Nerdanel, those are excellent quotes from the GI. I'd forgotten the latter one, and haven't made it yet to the former one. I think both of these quotes support my interpretation (of course ) So let's examine them.

I'm dealing with a "reality" which is inextricably bound to the mind(s) of my protagonist(s). According the rules I've created, we simply *can't* have the Land without Covenant/Linden. It really would be cheating if I suddenly announced, "OK, I was just kidding about that whole maybe-it's-not-real, you-are-the-white-gold shtick. Let's pretend it never happened."

That is definitive. We can't have the Land without Covenant/Linden. So how are we to reconcile this fact with the quote:

In the Platonic sense, the Land is *more* real than Covenant's "real world."

That quote seems to imply that the Land's reality transcends both Covenant and Linden. So why is it dependent upon them if it is more real than their world?

I think the key lies in the phrase, "Platonic sense." Plato's theory of Forms is a kind of idealism which holds that universals are more real than particulars. The world we experience in our everyday lives, the world of particular, individual things, is less real because the particular objects of experience are "pale copies" of the universal forms.

Wikipedia says:

universals do exist in a broad, abstract sense, although not at any spatial or temporal distance from people's bodies. Thus, people cannot see or otherwise come into sensory contact with universals, but in order to conceive of universals, one must be able to conceive of these abstract forms. Most modern Platonists avoid the possible ambiguity by never claiming that universals exist, but "merely" that they are.

By "universals," we are talking about the meaning of general terms. Instead of this particular apple, we are talking about the general concept, "appleness" for which every particular apple is an example. In order for us to understand that this particular apple is a member of the class of all apples, the general term "apple" is referring to a Form. The Form doesn't exist in our spatiotemporal world--you can't point to it or experience it except through the understanding. They are like archetypes, except Plato actually thought they had a kind of existence which transcended mere physical existence. Plato thought the world of sensation was less real than this ideal world of universals because the senses can be fooled. Thus, senses aren't the truest way to knowledge. Instead, reason is the path to knowledge. It is through reason that we know the Forms.

Again, from Wikipedia:

Platonic idealism is the theory that the substantive reality around us is only a reflection of a higher truth. That truth, Plato argues, is the abstraction. He believed that ideas were more real than things. He developed a vision of two worlds: a world of unchanging ideas and a world of changing physical objects.

So if we apply this to SRD's fictional world, I think I am justified to say that the Land is "more real" than Covenant's world because it is a mythological metaphor, a world of universals (such as Despite, Love, Good, Evil, etc.). It is an abstraction, a metaphorical world where the universals are personified by characters in a story. So we can say that the Land has an Ideal existence, whereas Covenant's world has an actual existence. "More real" for Donaldson thus means, "more meaningful" or "more significant" or "more universal." However, it does NOT mean "more actual" or "more substantive."

So how do we reconcile this Platonic idealism with the fact that the Land is dependent upon Covenant and Linden? Obviously, SRD isn't strictly a Platonic idealist--Plato never thought that the "realm" of Forms was dependent upon the imperfect world of our senses, but rather the other way around. So SRD couldn't have meant that the Land is literally more real than Covenant's. It is symbolically more real because the Land contains all the important universal ideas which SRD wants to talk about. The Land is more real than Covenant's world from our perspective because the universals which it symbolizes and personifies are real in our world, too. The eternal battle against Despite is real in our world--it is real in the same way it is real in the Land: as a universal struggle. However, there is nothing at all about Covenant's world which is real in our world in the same way that it's real in Covenant's world--i.e., the people and places in Covenant's world don't share an existence with our world. Covenant's world is literal (rather than symbolic, like the Land); the characters and places in his world are not literally in our world. But because the characters and places in the Land exist symbolically, metaphorically, they can share the existence with their counterparts in our world because these things "exist" in our world as universals, too.

Does that make any sense?

[Nerdanel]

Beneath the surface--OK, perhaps *far* beneath the surface--it remains true that we can't have the Land without Covenant and/or Linden.

I think this "*far* beneath the surface" probably refers to the level beneath the laws of the world SRD created and actually applies to SRD's writing process rather than the world itself. In theory you could have a story about the Land with neither Linden nor Covenant, but SRD would never write such a story because it's not the way his mind works.

For me all doubt of the Land's reality vanished when Joan turned out to be possessed and the Community of Retribution sacrificed their hands to summon Lord Foul.

[Xar]

Beneath the surface--OK, perhaps *far* beneath the surface--it remains true that we can't have the Land without Covenant and/or Linden.

I think this "*far* beneath the surface" probably refers to the level beneath the laws of the world SRD created and actually applies to SRD's writing process rather than the world itself. In theory you could have a story about the Land with neither Linden nor Covenant, but SRD would never write such a story because it's not the way his mind works.

For me all doubt of the Land's reality vanished when Joan turned out to be possessed and the Community of Retribution sacrificed their hands to summon Lord Foul.

I agree... I think it's pretty sure by now that the Land has its own physical existence. Even if one were to dismiss Foul's apparition in the fire (which people could dismiss on grounds that only Covenant and Linden saw it and remembered it, although this objection would still NOT explain how Linden could see a hallucination that looks EXACTLY like the Lord Foul Covenant knew), I think that the whole Community of Retribution/Sacrificial fire series of events, as well as the moment in which Linden returns to the real world but is still partly in the Land (TOT) and uses the remains of her health-sense on Covenant's stabbed body, realizing his spirit (which is in the Land) needs to go back to his body for it to be healed, AND the moment in which Linden in the real world uses the link of wild magic between her and Covenant to have him snatch her back into the Land, would be pretty much clear proof that the Land is a different reality, but nonetheless not just a figment of Covenant's and Linden's imagination.

As Nerdanel says, the whole "couldn't have the Land without Covenant and Linden" argument is very likely due to SRD's creative processes, and the way his mind works.

[wayfriend]

So if we apply this to SRD's fictional world, I think I am justified to say that the Land is "more real" than Covenant's world because it is a mythological metaphor, a world of universals (such as Despite, Love, Good, Evil, etc.). It is an abstraction, a metaphorical world where the universals are personified by characters in a story.

Bingo.

So how do we reconcile this Platonic idealism with the fact that the Land is dependent upon Covenant and Linden?

It's not enough to speak about metaphors and ideals, is it? You need to have a context. Metaphors and ideals only work when they are brought into play to solve a certain problem, illuminate a certain area, explain certain phenomenon. If you take them out of context, then, like any analogy, they fail to function, they even fail to have meaning.

Remember Donaldson's ideas about what fantasy is.

The Land exists to give Covenant and Linden a place to work things out. A land of ideals and metaphors, of abstractions ... metaphors for their personal dilemnas, abstractions of their inner conflicts, ideals of their fears and dreams. Donaldson said "The Land is the opposite of leprosy". Covenant's, and then Linden's, personal conflicts are abstracted in the Land so that they can be made concrete, made into living metaphors. Thus transmogrified, the characters can resolve them.

So both are true: the Land is more real; the Land is exists for Covenant and Linden. The Land is ideals and metaphors come to life; the ideals and metaphors are chosen by and shaped by Linden's and Covenant's need.

[Zarathustra]

Wayfriend, so we are in agreement? I think that's what you are saying.

Nerdanel:

For me all doubt of the Land's reality vanished when Joan turned out to be possessed and the Community of Retribution sacrificed their hands to summon Lord Foul.

Was she possessed, or just mentally unstable due to her life experiences (abandoning the man she loved due to an inability to accept his mortality)? If she was really possessed by Lord Foul or one of the Ravers, doesn't that violate what SRD said about characters from the Land appearing in Covenant's world?

Xar:

I think it's pretty sure by now that the Land has its own physical existence. I think that the whole Community of Retribution/Sacrificial fire series of events, as well as the moment in which Linden returns to the real world but is still partly in the Land (TOT) and uses the remains of her health-sense on Covenant's stabbed body, realizing his spirit (which is in the Land) needs to go back to his body for it to be healed, AND the moment in which Linden in the real world uses the link of wild magic between her and Covenant to have him snatch her back into the Land, would be pretty much clear proof that the Land is a different reality, but nonetheless not just a figment of Covenant's and Linden's imagination.

None of this proves the Land has its own physical existence. In fact, it proves that the Land CAN'T have a physical existence. If Linden was able to see their physical bodies in the "real" world, then how could they physically be in the Land, too? One can't be physically in two different places without having two physical bodies (which makes no sense).

What does Linden do with her "health-sense" in the real world? Nothing. Was there any evidence that she really had health sense in the real world? No, that could have been purely in her head. Haven't you ever woken from a dream and even though you were back in the real world, you were still carrying part of the dream with you? Like dreaming that there is an intruder in the house, and waking up wondering if it was real? She could be said to be in a hypnogogic state, between waking and dreaming.

Sure, Covenant's "spirit" needs to be in his body to be healed. We see this all the time in the real world, where a person's will to survive is a necessary componant to healing.

Linden using the Wild Magic to snatch her back into the Land: isn't this analogous to using one's willpower to get back into a dream? I've had many dreams that were interrupted, where I partially woke up, and then went back to sleep and WILLFULLY reentered the same dream. Lucid dreaming is another example where one uses willpower to control a dream.

We have real world examples of weird cults who do much worse than burn their hands without having to believe in a real, actual Lord Foul.

[Xar]

Nerdanel:

For me all doubt of the Land's reality vanished when Joan turned out to be possessed and the Community of Retribution sacrificed their hands to summon Lord Foul.

Was she possessed, or just mentally unstable due to her life experiences (abandoning the man she loved due to an inability to accept his mortality)? If she was really possessed by Lord Foul or one of the Ravers, doesn't that violate what SRD said about characters from the Land appearing in Covenant's world?

In the Second Chronicles, she was possessed insofar as her mind was controlled by Foul. But never was said that she was physically possessed by Foul or a Raver (i.e. she had Foul or a Raver inside her physical body). The concept seems to me more similar to a "link" between her mind and Foul's will. And I'm afraid that your explanation about the mental instability of Joan makes no sense: she herself tells Covenant, once she has drunk his blood, "he hates you" referring to Lord Foul. Who else would have been "he"? And how could Joan know about Foul if he were simply a dream of Covenant's? And she herself knows something is being done to her - plus, the whole drinking blood thing could not be explained by mental instability, because it psychologically has nothing to do with any feelings of guilt for having left Covenant.

Xar:

I think it's pretty sure by now that the Land has its own physical existence. I think that the whole Community of Retribution/Sacrificial fire series of events, as well as the moment in which Linden returns to the real world but is still partly in the Land (TOT) and uses the remains of her health-sense on Covenant's stabbed body, realizing his spirit (which is in the Land) needs to go back to his body for it to be healed, AND the moment in which Linden in the real world uses the link of wild magic between her and Covenant to have him snatch her back into the Land, would be pretty much clear proof that the Land is a different reality, but nonetheless not just a figment of Covenant's and Linden's imagination.

None of this proves the Land has its own physical existence. In fact, it proves that the Land CAN'T have a physical existence. If Linden was able to see their physical bodies in the "real" world, then how could they physically be in the Land, too? One can't be physically in two different places without having two physical bodies (which makes no sense).

That's not necessarily true. I'll make an example from a famous role-playing game - D&D. In D&D, when you summon a creature, what answers your summons is not the true physical form of the creature; rather, it is a copy of the creature's body hosting the creature's mind. This means that if the creature is killed while summoned, its mind goes back to its real, physical body with no harm done, but with the memories of all that happened while it was inhabiting the copy. A similar concept could be true for the Land. The original body of the creature remains behind; and the Land (or the Land's universe) creates a copy of that body for the creature's mind to inhabit. Incidentally, this also would explain why the Land is self-contained, and nothing that happens to the summoned creature in the Land has physical effects on the real world (i.e. why Covenant's leprosy in the real world wasn't healed after being treated with hurtloam in the Land, for example).

What does Linden do with her "health-sense" in the real world? Nothing. Was there any evidence that she really had health sense in the real world?

Here's the relevant paragraph:

Covenant was still pouring wild magic towards her, still striving to thrust her back into her old world. And that link kept her health-sense alight. When she looked at his body beside her - at the flesh outraged by the approach of death - she knew that he was alive.
The blood oozing from around the knife, the internal bleeding, the loos of fluid were nearly terminal; but not yet, not yet. Somehow, the blade had missed his heart. Flickers of life ached in his lungs, quivered in the failing muscles of his heart, yearned in the passages of his brain. He could be saved. It was still medically feasible to save him.

And soon afterwards:

But her percipience still lived. She knew him in that way more intimately than she had ever known herself. She felt his fierce grief and extremity across the gap between worlds. She knew - knew how to reach him.

You'll notice that she sees he is alive, and determines his physical condition, without even approaching his body or touching him. And we know at that point he isn't dead, because he's still alive in the Land, so she must be right. Therefore, this pretty much affirms that she still has health-sense in that moment.

Sure, Covenant's "spirit" needs to be in his body to be healed. We see this all the time in the real world, where a person's will to survive is a necessary componant to healing.

Except that Covenant wanted to live: he sent Linden back also to heal him. He even told her to do so when he sent her back. So if he wanted to live, your theory is flawed, because if he did want to live, and still Linden saw with health-sense that his body was lacking his spirit, it means that his spirit (and will) were simply NOT in his body.

Linden using the Wild Magic to snatch her back into the Land: isn't this analogous to using one's willpower to get back into a dream? I've had many dreams that were interrupted, where I partially woke up, and then went back to sleep and WILLFULLY reentered the same dream. Lucid dreaming is another example where one uses willpower to control a dream.

Except that Linden didn't follow lucid dreaming, AND that the wild magic she used to claw back into the Land was not hers. She didn't control it in any way. In fact, she threw herself into danger so that Covenant would bring her back into the Land. Now I ask you: did it ever happen to you that you were having a dream which was interrupted, and you could only re-enter it by hurting yourself?

We have real world examples of weird cults who do much worse than burn their hands without having to believe in a real, actual Lord Foul.

Except that you still haven't satisfactorily explained how Linden could see Lord Foul in the fire - and see him in exactly the same appearance he has at the end of TPTP, down to carious eyes, flowing robes, majestic beard and so on - when she had never seen Lord Foul nor spoken about him with Covenant. Even if she had been hallucinating, the chances of her having a hallucination that looks EXACTLY like Lord Foul are pretty slim. His description even uses the same words, like the carious eyes!

And also, the theory of the Land = dream does not explain how could Covenant and Linden share the same dream, and how could it be that the dream was so remarkably consistent with a dream Covenant had four times, ten years before. And how could Linden see a fragment of the Illearth Stone before Covenant did, when she had never heard or seen the Stone before. By the same token, how could Linden see Revelstone before Covenant, and having its image consistent with Covenant's memories AND Covenant's sight of it afterwards, down to the shaft of the Banefire. And so on, and so on.

And a couple of notes by SRD himself in the GI, about POVs and their meaning:

- For the first time I read Gilden-Fire during The Illearth War & was struck by how much of Illearth is actually not from Covenants' viewpoint or even within his prescence. Strikes me that the reason for the exclusion of Gilden-Fire doesn't honestly hold water. Your thoughts?

Superficially, you're right about point of view in "The Illearth War." But remember that virtually all of the non-Covenant POV is Hile Troy, who seems to have reached the Land from Covenant's "real world," so his viewpoint doesn't violate the principle which excluded "Gilden-Fire." As for the (as I recall) one other instance of non-Covenant viewpoint: I used Mhoram's POV in a (I hoped) subtle attempt to prepare for the significant viewpoint changes which would occur in "The Power that Preserves."

So now your Land = Dream theory should account not just for Linden and Covenant sharing the same dream, but also for Covenant and Troy doing the same, in the same dream as the one Covenant and Linden experience, but ten years earlier and without even having ever met each other. And about Troy coming from the real world:

1) Was Hile Troy from the "Real World"? Covenant's telpehone calls seem to indicate that he did not exist, though given the nature of agency he was phoning, this may have been a cover up.

1) I've always assumed that Hile Troy was indeed from Covenant's "real world."

So if Troy WAS from the real world, how could he share a dream with Covenant and be represented in that dream in exactly the same physical form he had in the real world, which Covenant had never seen? For what it matters, how could they share a dream at all, given that Troy was dead in the real world?

If someone summons a visitor to the Land, and the summoner dies, then the visitor leaves the Land. Right? That's why Covenant went back to his world between each book in the First Chronicles: Drool dies at the end of Book 1, and then Elena dies at the end of Book 2.

So what about Hile Troy, then? His summoner (Lena's mother, if I recall) died, but good ol' Troy still stuck around. The only explanation that I could come up with was that since she died in mid-summon, Troy managed to stick around on a technicality. (By the time he had fully appeared in the Land, his summoner was already dead.) Or something. Some clarification would be greatly appreciated!

I think the question is: who dies first, the summoner in the Land, or the person who is summoned from the real world? In Troy's case, he dies in the real world before Atiaran does in the Land; so he stays. But Covenant is still alive in the real world is when, say, Drool dies; so he goes.

So Troy, who is from the real world, dies in the real world more or less at the same time he's summoned to the Land, which in turn is months of Land-time before Covenant is summoned (that would probably be hours in "real-world" time). So Covenant would be sharing the dream with a dead person from his own world? That's stretching dreams a little bit, isn't it?

But even beyond this, in TPTP you have a chapter from Mhoram's POV, when Covenant isn't even in the Land yet. This cannot be explained as a dream: unless you believe that characters in your dream live on even when you're not in the dream (or sleeping at all) and have their own consciousnesses, in which case you're just stating that your dream can be an independent world, thereby invalidating the Land=dream theory.