If it's Pitchwife's natural condition, then you shouldn't call it a deformity.iQuestor wrote:Im with WF on this.
Remember that among the Elohim, Pitchwife was shown himself as he would have been had he been born normal; this was his test. The First also was shown this image. They both passed, because she loved him for who he was, and Pitchwife himself knew that he was larger than his unfortunate deformity. This is an important point to remember -- he showed no regret, nor did the First, when shown just how perfect he would have been.
Pitchwife would have been fine without his deformity being corrected. Healing of wounds is one thing, and we take it for granted most of the time people want to be healed. However PitchWife's deformity was something normal to himself, he had lived with it all his life, and it was not a measure by which he, or his loved ones judged him. SO Linden's correction of his bent spine without his consent was done at least as much for her purposes, as it was for his own good, whether he would have chosen it if offered. Perhaps Linden was making sure the SOL was brought out by the Giants, or she was just giving a gift she now had the power to bestow, one that couldnt be protested.
In any case, I do think there is a connection of symbolism between the Sunbane's warping of Earthpower, and PitchWife's deformity. She corrected them both, to her own purposes, as she felt they should be, by her own moral guidelines.
therefore, the line, "So that she could trust herself later" -- I do think she wanted to heal his deformity first, then expend the remainder of her time in the Land correcting the sunbane. She knew time was short and that once she started, she couldnt stop. So she corrected PitchWife first, then focused on the Sunbane until her return was complete.
Giving this my best interpretation: I do think there is, in this day and age, a certain attempt to see deformity of any kind as "natural," and that therefore we should "accept" it. There is nothing "wrong," in this view, with being born a cripple or to be born with any kind of debilitating disease.
The problem with this view is that it can potentially stifle efforts to find cures for problems some babies are born with. At any rate, this debate belongs to the arena of medical morality.
But whether you believe this view is right or wrong, it is obvious from the text that Pitchwife's "deformity" did result in real medical issues whenever he exerted himself. At the end he apparently ruptured a lung fighting with the Cavewights, and it was a wound internally inflicted by his condition. And so LA pro-actively solved the problem which led to it, as any good doctor would.
