I like Linden a lot, but I admit she really tested my patience and loyalty when she beat up on Covenant's Dead. It's entirely understandable how many readers would come to dislike Linden after she denigrates people we've come to know and love from the First Chronicles.
I agree with Mr. Fixit here. After all that they've gone through together, how is that Linden has lost trust in Covenant? She would take Kevin's word over his? Does she so easily discredit or forget the things Covenant told her in Revelstone after his trial in the Banefire?
I do see duchess's point that trust and communication in a relationship should be a two way street. Still..."Foul servant" Kevin's words are to be believed over "Foul buttkicker" Covenant's?
Is Vain cool or what? Lost in the distress of Linden's flight, the reader kind of forgets that Vain always follows the Chosen. Good ol' Vain saves Linden from having to explain herself to a Sunbane-warped Pitchwife and First of the Search. That would have been REALLY bad.
But that's the thing MM, Covenant doesn't deny what Kevin said at all. He is planning to surrender the ring to Foul, and I think hat Linden heard the truth of that in Kevin's voice.
Also, if Covenant's Dead know so much, is it wrong for Linden to think that her Dead might as well?
Sum sui generis
Vs
You do not hear, and so you cannot be redeemed.
In the name of their ancient pride and humiliation, they had made commitments with no possible outcome except bereavement.
He knew only that they had never striven to reject the boundaries of themselves.
Also, I believe that Linden is so angry with Covenant's Dead because she thinks that they are misleading him. She reasons that they can't have made a mistake because they are the Dead, and yet she actually felt the truth of what Kevin said with her percipience. This leads her to the belief that Covenant's Dead were misleading him.
Sum sui generis
Vs
You do not hear, and so you cannot be redeemed.
In the name of their ancient pride and humiliation, they had made commitments with no possible outcome except bereavement.
He knew only that they had never striven to reject the boundaries of themselves.
Remember that she (Linden) had a trust issue anyway. She felt that her parents betrayed her and both of them surrendered. So she has held off from loving anyone else. Yes she loved her parents even though they were deranged. Now that she has finally opened herself up to someone and learned to trust them, to allow herself to love again. Now she perceives that Covenant is going to do the same thing.. give the ring up the ring. Surrender.. just like her parents did.
SoulBiter
We miss you Tracie but your Spirit will always shine brightly on the Watch
It almost seems like Linden knows he is going to die, but hasn't accepted or prepared herself for it yet. I mean, if she realized that he really was going to die, she might realize that he had a trick up his sleeve.
I've loved Andelain and Foamfollower AND Mhoram way back since LFB days.
I loved Elena in all her insanity and even pitied her choices with Kevin... but... she still scares me.
And even though sometimes I hated Bannor and is unyielding dispassion, I miss that guy... just as I miss Brinn. I think they began to grow on me just before they seperated from us.
OH ANDELAIN!!!!
All I can think of... those poor animals.
Now, another question I pose is... are Sunder and Hollian still in Andelain? And if they are, can the Sunbane affect them now as it did... well... before. If it can, would they know when it was going to set in? Or are they just running around as warped victims?
By the way, Dan... I just thought you'd be interested in hearing that the field marching show for my band next year is Lion King... =D
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
Hmmm ...
All I can give are impressions and opinions.
I know Linden was extremely ill at the beginning of the Second Chronicles. What kind of illness you'd call it, I don't know. It had various symptoms, and one of those was withdrawal. That is, withdrawal from interaction with anyone around her. Isolation. And insulation. Insulation from being loved, or loving another. It is really hard to see that Linden loving Thomas Covenant or anyone else.
Yet now, in this chapter, we see that she loves him extravagantly. She rails against his suicide plans, despite the reality that his death is preordained and certain. She rages against his Dead, taking her pain out on them (it seemed to me that her rage, her caring and the rage it caused, was what so pleased Mhoram at that point.) Then she rages against Covenant, a futile rage but a rage nonetheless. And Linden does not stop caring about him.
I could not see the original Linden raging against anything. Analytically, coldly, dissecting a situation, yes, but not raging out of genuine love.
Covenant had explained to Linden much earlier that Hamako had foreseen his own death, and had at least achieved something good from it (in addition to just plain dying.) Linden, being the new Linden, had reacted as a normal person might: with anger and horror. (He DIED.) Now, faced with her love trying to make his own death have meaning, she railed against the inevitable reality of Covenants death as any normal person would.
As for the Sunbane breaking into Andelain, THAT was painful to read, and I have always wished that the company would have found ways to hasten to Mount Thunder. Such as building a raft, or even just floating down the Soulsease River. Of course Findail could have slowed the onslaught of the Sunbane, but he would not. He would do nothing to relieve the pressure on Covenant to give his Ring to Linden, or to Findail himself.
Very, very sad.
Linden raged against the onslaught of the Sunbane, too. The old Linden would have coldly said that Andelain needed to be put out of it's misery. This Linden would have given her life to save Andelain.
Of course Findail could have slowed the onslaught of the Sunbane, but he would not.
Could he have done so? I wonder. Certainly Findail, as an Elohim, was Earthpower incarnate. However, Caer-Caveral was not. As a Forestal, he was the emobodiment of all the knowledge that she who bacame the Colossus taught to the One Forest. In other words, he was an expression of lore, or perhaps even Law unto himself. It seems to me that that was how he was able to protect Andelain - by providing the Law by which the inherent Earthpower in Andelain could resist the Sunbane.
dlbpharmd wrote:In other words, he was an expression of lore, or perhaps even Law unto himself. It seems to me that that was how he was able to protect Andelain - by providing the Law by which the inherent Earthpower in Andelain could resist the Sunbane.
Indeed, "I hold the glaive of Law against the Earth", says that he weilds Law in the Earth's defense. Fron which, by SRD rules, we can probably infer that he is probably a fundamental part of Law itself by the time of WGW.
Conceded. Findail could not have halted the onslaught of the Sunbane against Andelain. It required Law, and Findail only had Earthpower to offer.
However, Findail could have used his Earthpower to whisk the group quickly to Mount Thunder. Or summoned something else that could.
However, I do not think the selfish Elohim would do anything such. His selfishness and self-pity staggers Covenants (as Covenant was during the First Chronicles, that is.)
It's always: poor Findail, look what a horrible end fate has in store for him.
On the other hand, Covenant could have tried to summon Nom and his friends (getting names out of Nom, obviously.) Or built a raft. ANYTHING to get to Mount Thunder quickly, and head off the destruction of Andelain.
Edelaith wrote:On the other hand, Covenant could have tried to summon Nom and his friends (getting names out of Nom, obviously.) Or built a raft. ANYTHING to get to Mount Thunder quickly, and head off the destruction of Andelain.
I don't think anyone was aware that Andelain was due for a demise until it started happening. It certainly wasn't 'in the cards' until Caer Caveral died, and no one could have seen that coming.
Fixit, although I can see your point of view in your post, I cannot entirely agree with it. Mhoram told Covenant, "You are the white gold." He had years to figure out exactly what that meant. Linden was not privy to the conversation or to the revelation that went with it. To Linden, the white gold was a ring around a man's finger, not the man himself.
Kevin is also noted as having lost to Foul. I'm a bit of a chess geek myself, and it seems to me he upset the board before foul had him in checkmate rather than concede the loss. Sure it was a ritual of desecration performed by two of the most powerful beings in the entire Land, but if he had lost, that meant that Foul won, but as we all know Foul is still in his prison, the board after a time has been reset, and so has the clock. The new lords, based on Kevin's teachings are powerful, but based on a fear of his "mistake" they've weakened themselves (the oath of peace). Mhoram learned balance in the end.
Linden and Mhoram actually do have a lot in common and as the master himself writes in reference to ROTE: Linden Avery, like High Lord Mhoram before her, has a few things to say about the redemptive potential of inadequacy.
To analyze this, Linden feels inadequate, just like Mhoram did. Combine a feeling of inadequacy with the fact that Covenant fully intends to give up the ring of his own volition to Foul, her fear of Andelain and her dread of confronting her own dead, and her new found love for Covenant. It's all a bit overwhelming for her.
So in her inadequacy, Linden lashes out in anger. As Variol Son has stated, does she lash out at her new found love? Of course not... She's a woman who is hurt and angry and feels betrayed, she lashes out at other's playing on their inadequacies, their flaws. Her she finds that her passion, and even her inadequacies give her a power of sorts.
Fixit, I would like to commend you on your writing style, you demonstrate a vast understanding of Thomas Covenant, of Andelain, and of the general gist of where the chapter took us, but have little understanding of Kevin's power (c'mon man he's the guy that left the wards, think about this Amok, the key to the seventh ward has ridden sandgorgons - SANDGORGONS!).
You seem to love to hate Linden, and you seem to possess a general lack of understanding the the female psyche - sure she went ballistic, but think what your wife would do if she found out that you were planning to quit your job to become a suicide bomber - now take a look at Linden's relatively calm and rational reaction to the news that the white gold is going to hit Foul's hand, and all of Covenant's good friends in Andelain are just going to stand by and let it happen.
( There're a number of Linden haters at the Watch. ((Think of them as an extremist splinter-group that loves to vent their hatred on the innocent. )) You'll bump into it from time to time, but fear not, they do not represent everyone. )
The Linden/Covenant relationship gets to have its crisis moment before the end, and this is it. It is utterly necessary that we, the reader, become suspicous of Covenant ourselves. How could we be if Linden remained calm and detached?
Prothall said, "Bitterness is a sign of concern. I trust that." We, the reader, need to live up to that as well. Linden's rage here is only a sign of the depth of her concern.
During Linden's meeting with the Dead, Foamfollower cautions her against believing Kevin:
"You must remember that he has been made to serve the Despiser"
Was not also Elena forced to serve Foul, by exacerbating the winter of TPTP and confronting Covenant at the Colossus?
I'm guessing that she was redeemed by the destruction of the Staff of Law in some way, as just before she fades she has clearly resumed her normal self:
"Covenant! Beloved! Strike a blow for me"
We see in "Colossus" that she hates what she has been forced to do, but presumably Kevin does as well?
Yes, we know he does, Herem, because of his rage at Elena when she chooses to command him to fight Foul when he knows, not only that he must lose, but that she is changing the laws of death in Foul's favor.
"The universe is made of stories, not atoms." -- Roger Penrose
* 
)) You'll bump into it from time to time, but fear not, they do not represent everyone. ) 
