What's the most unsettling part of the Chronicles?

[Ur Dead]

OK the most unsettling part of the Chronicles..

The last page in the last book. It means it all at a end..

[Orlion]

The entire second half of the Illearth War. I didn't take the chronicles serious until I read about the slaughter at Seareach, and at that point I realized we weren't in Oz anymore and SRD meant business.

The despair of the lumpy reject creations in TPTP(I can't remember their names) after Covenant told them he wasn't their savior was also always haunting....(shiver).

[Rocksister]

Orlion, I think you mean the jeherrin, and later, in the 2nd Chrons, their descendants, the suh-jeherrin. They were looking for the Pure One, who, as it turned out, was Saltheart Foamfollower, after his hike through Hotash Slay cleansed him of all hate and bitterness. What a great part of the TC story. I always loved that the jeherrin wanted to be noble and pure to make up for their pitiful existence. But their sadness was so painful and depressing. It made me want to weep for clay.....

[Mysteweave]

Among other things that have already been mentioned, the fate of the Waynhim in WGW disturbed me greatly.

[Blackhawk]

after the last read through i would say that the death of the Giants and Seadreamers end still has to the most upsetting parts...along with the maiming of the Haruchai and the end of their vow told by Banor. Hamakos story and his end. and the Waynhim.... I even felt bad for the urviles and they probably had it worst of all.. trying to follow the staff and constantly being drawn in because of their darker nature for Fouls armies.

[Seeker of Truth]

poignant moment was in the Illearth War when Tull was giving his report to Mhoram, Troy et al on top of Kevins Watch.... the first time you see any of the bloodguard with emotions......

[Fullmetal660]

For me its the last dance of the wraiths in LFB, its also one of the first time to come across supernatural beings (wraiths and ur-viles) so it has that added impact. Then later on TC begins to blame himself for not being albe to stop the ur-viles. Probably the best part of LFB for me.

[Thome]

One unsettling part for me was when in The Power that Preserves Satansfist is described as feasting on the flesh of prisoners captured on the march from Landsdrop. You've seen enough glimpses of the communities to know what the people are like, how they talk, what they wear, that kind of thing, so even though it's not graphic I found it a chilling sentence.

[/i]

[White Gold Ark]

I agree with Ur Dead:

OK the most unsettling part of the Chronicles..

The last page in the last book. It means it all at a end..

His reaction to what had just happened made me think oh f**k. Donaldson set it up so that anything could have happened at the end, and even though it was unsettling, I'm glad it happened the way it did.

By the way if you haven't read FR, you should ASAP, runes was kind of a disappointment to me, but FR did a pretty damn good job of redeeming it. One great thing about FR is you learn a lot about the land that wasn't said before.

[amanibhavam]

I've got a feeling Ur Dead had the last sentence of The Last Dark in mind.

[deer of the dawn]

In my reading I just got to "Tull's Tale." I closed the book because in the freshness of the morning I didn't want to hear the tale told in the darkness on Kevin's Watch of the slaughter at Seareach. It exceeded me.

[Holsety]

The croel.

The croel.

I don't even remember what it actually is. I just think of it as an evil dead zombie mind-lich parasite baby.

Nothing creeps me out more than babies. There's this one game called drakengard (it's a bad game btw) and in one of the ending branches you spend a stage fighting giant babies. IIRC they are immune to magic, they can send out magic pulses which can knock you off your dragon, they take a lot of punishment, and you can only hit them with jumping attacks because they can fly. You can either land on the mother of destruction and be eaten while a sidekick seals the whole thing in time, or you can be teleported with the goddess over tokyo, kill it in an air battle, and then be shot down by fighter planes. The latter ending is arguably the "best ending" since the goddess of destruction thing doesn't reincarnate and the main character doesn't have to kill his dragon.

I'm not even exaggerating.

[Rocksister]

Hurtloam? You don't know what hurtloam is?????

That one was killer. All he knew was gone and he was in a whole other Land. How horrible that realization must have been.

[Morning]

The slaying of Kelenbhrabanal. I mean, the way of its slaying.

[Bannorfan]

I've read through alot of these, but not all, so if I mention some which have already been mentioned... well... oh well.

I have to say, I was impressed by alot that was already said here. There's so much in the books which is quite disturbing. I'll name a few that I thought noteworthy that I didn't see mentioned.

1. When Hile Troy was blinded at Doriendor Korishev, and attacked his bloodguard. At the time, I couldn't believe he acted that way, but upon reflection I can understand his terror. Gaining vision in the land was undoubtedly a life-altering experience, and it couldn't have come as a surprise that Troy never wanted to leave the land and lose that inestimable gift. To have something he so deeply cherished, not simply because he could see, but because his sight was so unique and exceptional (his vision was much farther than everyone else's), so savagely ripped away from him when so many people were counting so desperately on him, it's no wonder he was temporarily gripped with insanity.

2. When the Haruchai who accompanied Covenant &co. on their search for the One Tree fell victim to the Merewives. We had already seen the failing of the Bloodguard vow in the previous trilogy, which was devastating enough, but for all intensive purposes, we had, by this point, fallen back into the frame of mind that the Haruchai were an impervious bulwark against which the company could always fall back when trouble arose. The Search was already desperate, but the Haruchai provided a source of strength, unchanging and unflinching in the face of desperation. When they (Cail and Ceer? Can't recall precisely) jumped into the sea at the call of the merewives, we are so starkly reminded of the fall of the haruchai in the first trilogy. We become poignantly aware that any strength we perceive in this company of amazing characters, is merely a facade, and all of them are simply acting out of desperation and a slim hope.

3. When the Elohim placed a block on Covenant's mind. Covenant is the victim (and victimizer) of so much, and we feel that with him. With the introduction of Linden, we are provided with a perspective of Covenant that is something similar to our own: an outsider looking in. Our first knowledge of Covenant (like Linden's), is that he is a leper that has been ostracized from his community. Over the course of his experiences, we go through a variety of emotions for him, ranging from anger and hatred (when observing much of his terrible behavior) to respect and perhaps even love (when observing beneath his layered bitterness a nobility which occasionally allows him to do some extraordinary things). Linden too experiences this range of emotions during her time with Covenant. One of the most horrifying things that happens to covenant, for me, was when the Elohim placed the block on his mind, making him little more than a vegetable, and a desperately dangerous one at that. For anyone who's had any real experience with people in this kind of state, the impact that this event has is tremendous. In Linden, I felt a kind of companionship. Perhaps here, when Linden helped bring Covenant back from the brink, she found a measure of vindication for what she did to her mother.

[Worm of Despite]

Damn, why didn't I post in this thread before?

-Cail saying, "F.U." to TC and going to get laid.

There's where you got your name, right?

As for me, I'd say Covenant's story to Saltheart about the leper who cut his wrists. There's something very disturbing to me about someone slashing their wrists.

[amanibhavam]

Now that I can look back to eight books of the Chronicles I must say that the most disturbing scenes are still in LFB for me; the displays of TC's unbelief and insensitivity were so upsetting; and no, I do not mean the rape, bur rather when all he could think of his fingers when Triock and Atiaran raged at each other about him; his behaviour after the battle of Soaring Woodhelven etc.
I mean I could understand all he did and I can emphatize with him and don't think I could do any better in his shoes, but still those scenes were really-really unsettling for me.

And this is where I see the genius of SRD. I finished LFB with the thought, dear God what a jerk, and then he brought in Hile Troy who started to challenge TC on every level and suddenly I found myself siding with Covenant and being angry with Troy how he could think everything being so straightforward and blackandwhite as he seemingly thought it was. That is no unremarkable feat of storytelling and character development IMHO.

[notaraver]

1. Covenant raping Lena to begin with. I thought I was reading epic fantasy, like Tolkien. What was going to go on if our hero (these were the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, right?) was a bad guy from day 1?

2. Coercri--the slaughter of the Giants--oh the terrible power of Despite/Despair! heartrending.

3. Loss of Thomas Covenant's mind during the visit to Elemesdene.

4. During my recent re-reading, I found Hollian's death disturbing because I sort of remembered from reading it the first time around (when it first came out) that she'd survived.

sort of.

[AjK]

Hey ... greetings & welcome to the Watch, Bannonfan! Feel free to come on over here kevinswatch.ihugny.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3880 and introduce yourself.

[ninjaboy]

I started reading the whole thing again last night.. And I don't know what's worse - reading it for the first time and having your heard unexpectedly rent over and over again.

OR reading it again, and knowing what's about to happen.

Actually one of the most graphically disurbing imagery from the entire series in in the Runes of the Earth, but we can't discuss that here.

I know these two have been said before, but a) the slaughter of the Wraiths of Andelain and b) the fate of the Unhomed. Obviously. But both these acts of slaughter have a common theme - they occur at the moment when the future seems so bright, when there is hope for optimism..

Atarian's heart aad been set on seeing the Dance of the Wraiths, and Covenants presence seemed to make the Wraiths enjoy themselves even more.. Atarian had to watch one of the happiest moments in her miserable life be cunsumed by evil, and she already had a hell of a lot to complain about.

The Giants of Seareach had been almost dying out - the birth of three sons was meant to be a good omen for them - they were more ripe with joy than they had been for years. To see it all go as it did would have destroyed them in so many ways.