You know, whenever I read that last sentence, I just figured that LA woke up, took the ring from TC's body, and then Donaldson mentioned that she was holding it. Nothing miraculous.
And even if you want to argue that the trade occurred in the Land, one could say that she took the ring in her sleep, and made up that section of the dream to explain how it happened.
Anyhow... I always believed the Land was real, but it was also interesting that in many ways, especially in the first Chrons, there are so many parallels between the life of the Land and Covenant that the Land really could be his dream.
In the second Chrons, though, Foul's corruption of everything vs. the apparent lack of similar corruption in Covenant's life (besides leprosy, which was arrested in the real world) breaks a lot of that parallelism. I'm not sure what to make of that.
dlbpharmd wrote:
2) The Unhomed were slaughtered in the 1st Chronicles and the Waynhim were slaughtered in the 2nd....who's next? (Please God! Not the Haruchai!!)
afaik the whole Earth will be destroyed at the end of the LCTC...
------------------------------------------------------------------------ love is the shadow that ripens the wine
Everyone - you just don't know how glad I am to find this site/discussion board. I have so much I want to ask about! I've never met anyone personally who has read (or will admit to having read) TCTC. thanks!
dlbpharmd wrote:Everyone - you just don't know how glad I am to find this site/discussion board. I have so much I want to ask about! I've never met anyone personally who has read (or will admit to having read) TCTC. thanks!
I was thrilled to find it too Now my hubby doesn't have to listen to my endless babble about the books, and others, all the time. I can bring my babble here. Love this place!!
And I believe in you
altho you never asked me too
I will remember you
and what life put you thru.
~fly fly little wing, fly where only angels sing~
~this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you~
...for then I could fly away and be at rest. Sweet rest, Mom. We all love and miss you.
Believer,
I had also thought of the possibility that Linden took Covenant's ring off his dead body without us seeing it. Could it be that SRD honestly doesn't have an opinion on whether or not the Land is "real" and leaves it entirely up to each of us? After all, he could easily enough have said, "The ring was in Linden's hand when she woke up." This isn't the only matter about which he's less direct than he could be. Maybe he wants these books to be even more open to interpretation than books usually are. Which is plenty.
But for me, I'm gonna believe it's real. Since he did NOT say, "She took the ring off of Covenant's dead finger when nobody was looking," I'll assume she didn't.
And this leads to a new thread I'm starting in a minute.
dlbpharmd,
My wife's a pharmacist too, so I've heard of the Pharm D program.
Of course, maybe the Final Chronicles will tell all. Unequivocally. (Yeah, right! )
All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest -Paul Simon
I think if anyone knows whether the Land is real or not it would be SRD LOL .. after all he made all this stuff up
I cant conceive SRD writing a 3rd chrons of Thomas Covenant .. who is deceased .. dead .. 30 feet under .. history .. a nobody leper who not too many cared about and is now dead and buried .. unless in TC there was still a story.
It defies comprehension to .. continue a story .. with a physical reality in our world as that death is .. if there is no more story.
SRD .. has to believe the Land is real .. because if TC has any part in it from this point on .. following his demise .. LOL .. it has to be in the Land ..
and if TC exists in the Land in the 3rd chrons .. THE LAND IS REAL .. at least from SRD's perspective .. you'd think ..
in the 1st and 2nd chrons SRD has made us think and question .. to a lesser extent when another 'our worlder' joined TC .. LA!!
its not just about being maybe TC's dream creation .. but one must also factor in another .. individual who shared his experience at the precisely same time as he did ..
what of LA? did she think she had dreamed it all?? I think not ..
LA really was transported to an alter reality .. <other reality > and in that reality .. and only THAT reality .. TC gave her his ring ..
pretty tight if you ask me
keep smiling
'Smoke me a kipper .. I'll be back for breakfast!'
Wow, this thread has some longevity. Can't believe it has been almost a year since I posted. LOL.
Having read the trilogies again (and again, and again, wash, rinse, repeat) I am fairly convinced that the Land post 2nd Trilogy will truly be a reflection of Linden on some level in the same way that the Land in the 1st Trilogy was a reflection of TC.
The end of the 2nd Trilogy is about rewriting a tale. Almost as if Linden was speaking third person and saying: I am Linden Avery and this is MY story.
Of course, we know the Land will be an absolute mess with the breaking of so many laws and the endeavor of Avery to create a new land in the midst of chaos. (Wouldn't be fun if it was Eden now, would it?)
In a way, perhaps Linden's fashioning of the Staff of Law is like trying to "make sense of it all", and the real question is whether the Land reinvents itself in a computer reset sort of way, or it requires new programming. I am in favor of the latter. And the new Land will be as wrought with problems as the old, just from a different point of view perhaps.
There is some kind of odd parallel between Kevin's Ritual of Desecration and Linden's fashioning of the Staff. I can't quite get my head around this yet. Both of them acted with deep affection for the land, although Kevin acted with emotion born out of sadness/rage/betrayal/frustration whereas Linden's act was a labor born of pure joy and love (at least I think). But in both situations, the protagonist thought he or she was doing the right thing. Could Linden have repeated the same mistake as Kevin, but from the other end? (i.e., Ritual of Desecration vs. Rebirth) with both stubbornly believing they were the right person for the job? Or, perhaps from another standpoint, they were the ONLY ONES for the job, and yet their flaws led to further disaster and complications.
im kind of nervous about this "new chronicles" deal...i mean, hell yeah, id love more books, but...i grew so attached to Covenant in the first two...i dunno...i havent heard much about em, and what i read of it didnt mention him really...so...
but of course im gonna swipe these as soon as theyre done!
I guess we will soon see about the conclusion of the Second Chronicles and what it means for our hero and heroine, anti though they may have been and yet be . . .
I am re-reading the whole series again for the zillionth time and seeking new meaning like a Bible interpretation.
Having now reread LOTR I don't think there is a fantasy series with greater depth than TC, at least on a spiritual or emotional level for me.
Man, I gotta get all this stuff out of my mind. I just finished 2nd Chrons yesterday for the first time. I have a few weeks before book 7 comes out. I don’t have the 20 years of thought and suspense that everyone else here has. But hell, I got 2 and a half weeks left for III chron speculation, and I am going to use it.
I definitely think that all the venom inside of covenant when he used the wild magic could have been the door which enables Lord Foul to corrupt The Arch of Time. Specifically the midnight fire TC wields before his "smelting" in the Banefire.
I am sure Foul will be back, saying the same old spiel. "Groveled, you have insured my ultimate victory. Know that your every action makes you more my slave!"
He will claim it was all part of his ultimate plan anyway. (at least, he had better, it will make seeing him go down forever that much sweeter!)
The Dreaming wrote:I definitely think that all the venom inside of covenant when he used the wild magic could have been the door which enables Lord Foul to corrupt The Arch of Time. Specifically the midnight fire TC wields before his "smelting" in the Banefire.
That doesn't appear to be what SRD has in mind for the Last Chronicles, Dreaming. That scenario was already posed to him in the April section of the Gradual Interview. SRD's answer:
But consider this: when Covenant surrendered his ring to Lord Foul at the end of "White Gold Wielder," Foul's subseqent attack on him burned away the venom. Hence there is nothing inherently flawed about Covenant's role as the keystone/defender of the Arch of Time. (Yes, even granting that white gold is an alloy, and in the Banefire Covenant transformed the venom into an element in the alloy of himself. The venom still represented a danger--a flaw--which is why Covenant then gave up using power altogether.)
IMO, the Land is real, and it is not real. To borrow Jung's terminology, the Land is the collective unconscious. It is, in that sense, not real. It is the latent dream-world that exists in the human psyche. It is the place where human consciousness grows, evolves, struggles. It is life itself, for life is a struggle to grow and evolve. At the same time, it is real. It does "exist." As it is collective, both TC and LA can share their experience within it. In that sense, it is more than just a latent, embedded map in our psyche, but a place where people can share a growing experience together. Perhaps it even takes a phsyical manifestation, fueled by the souls of all humanity that pass through.
LF, then, is a human archetype dwelling in the collective unconscious. He is despair. As TC says, he is one part of us. All of us. A shadow, part of the human psyche that we would choose to reject. Wherever Persona is, Shadow is also. Wherever good is, is evil. But as SRD shows us in the CoTC, despair cannot be eradicated from the human psyche. Indeed, sometimes repressing it, denying it, only makes it stronger. In the end, only by acknowledging it as part of himself does TC make it wane and prevent it from consuming him. In dealing with the shadow, the unconscious, lies the key to growth.
jmo
psa
There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
4 clearfrontier's reference
