How does TC rationalize his 'relationship' with (spoiler)

[DavidDel]

I have just re-read TIEW for about the 4th time in the last 20 years and the last time I read it, the internet wasn't really anything to speak of, so this question always nagged at me :

How does TC rationalize his relationship with Elena? He knows that she is his daughter and yet he doesn't seem repulsed by the idea of a intimate relationship with her. He often seems to blame her saying "are you trying to drive me crazy?" rather then saying "you are my daughter. You are my flesh and blood and therefore we cannot have any sort of relationship but what a natural father and daughter would have".

My first thoughts on this were that TC doesn't believe the LAND to be real anyway, so all bets were off -rape, incest - jump in head first! But that doesn't seem to hold water because if he didn't believe any of it, he wouldn't averted himself from killing; again because none of it is real. This thought I couldn't really get my head around, so I took a different tact.

My second thought was that Elena did not know him for the course of her lifetime and his resemblance to Berek (the hero) was therefore a natural choice for her because she was the High Lord (king and queen). And I assume the same goes for TC who didn't know her at all.

The trouble I found was that once TC found out she was his daughter, he still seems to skirt on the edge of the despicable act of incest.

Any thoughts? Sorry if this has been covered before...

AND

Also, I have to add I thought it was a wise decision on SRD's part to make Hile Troy imperfect when he killed the Bloodguard (indirectly) by hitting in on the head with a rock. It made his ending speeches and judgments against TC more ironic.

[High Lord Tolkien]

There are a few threads dealing with how much of a nut job Elena is.
That whole thing is weird, I agree.
TC treated her like a daughter though, if I remember correctly.
She dropped her robe and offered herself to him but he just covered her up.
But she never stopped calling him "Beloved" which was odd though.
But Elena is the product of some Wild Magic sperm so that explains it.


Wild Magic, it's a hell of a drug.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Elena would have been a little unbalanced since she was a child. I imagine her mother told her thousands of times that her father was a legend, a hero, and Berek reborn--this wrongly colors a child's idea of their parent even if it is true. The parent becomes, to the child, literally superhuman and the child knows, deep down, that they will never be equal to their parent, no matter how hard they try or what they may accomplish. Elena therefore never felt herself to be equal to her father and knew, albeit unconsciously, that she would fail in some way.

[CovenantJr]

Yes, Elena was a little...imbalanced. But that's not all there is to it. After all, she lived her whole life without ever knowing Covenant as a father, but being constantly exposed to his legend - and then he finally comes back and he's younger than she is. It's not really that surprising that she doesn't have familial feelings for him, but her well-documented madness nudged her over the edge into actually acting on impulses that she should otherwise have at least mentally refused.

As for Covenant himself, I think he was in a similar situation but without the insanity. He doesn't feel like Elena's his daughter, but once he knows he acts accordingly - though knowing isn't the same as feeling. He's previously found Elena attractive and she bears a resemblance to Lena, plus he's convinced of the Land's unreality; this all pushes him in one direction, while his conscious sense of morality pushes him the other way.

[DavidDel]

If Elena was really unbalanced, she wouldn't have made it to be High Lord, right? I would have assumed the Mhoram would have put a stop to it when they were choosing the next lord in line, no?

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Not necessarily. Elena was not insane in the usual sense; rather, she had...a magnified amplitude of emotional content, for lack of a better way of saying it. Her emotional range was more extreme than that of the other Lords and emotion is the key to power in the Land.

[soft one]

If Elena was really unbalanced, she wouldn't have made it to be High Lord, right? I would have assumed the Mhoram would have put a stop to it when they were choosing the next lord in line, no?

Additionally, at least some of the Lords knew who she was and where she came from. They assumed she would bring something special to the table because of her father.

[Rigel]

If Elena was really unbalanced, she wouldn't have made it to be High Lord, right? I would have assumed the Mhoram would have put a stop to it when they were choosing the next lord in line, no?

You're assuming that being sane is a requirement for service to the Land

I think SRD made the comment somewhere in the GI that Elena's imbalance didn't necessarily preclude her from being the best Lord to lead the council, and he's got a point.

Sure, she's a nutjob; but then, we all have weaknesses, and she had more than enough strength to compensate (in most situations).

[Wheelwash Whitecap]

After reading TIEW several times, I did not get the feeling Elena was imbalanced or imperfect in anyway. The only thing that hinted at it was her bizarre feelings toward her father. Now when her and TC were getting close to the EarthBlood she started acting imbalanced.

[CovenantJr]

She was conceived by effectively a superhero during an act of rape, then raised by an unhinged mother (remember when we see Lena again, she's all kinds of not right in the head) who is obsessed with her rapist. Elena too is obsessed with Covenant, but she's also fascinated by the power of despair, and has a gaze that never quite focuses on what she's meant to be looking at.

She's a nutter, and rightly so. She is intelligent, charismatic, bold, resourceful, and (at the risk of sounding like a job advert) dynamic. It's no wonder she became a Lord, or even High Lord - and her lineage probably helped with that. But it doesn't change the fact that she was fundamentally broken. Her madness only showed itself in certain situations? Yes, but that doesn't mean it wasn't there before.

[wayfriend]

RE: justification

I think Covenant's position accurately reflects a man who intellectually knows Elena is his daughter while physically and emotionally having no connection to her whatsover except as a man being seduced by the most beautiful woman in the Land. He tried to be a father; but under the circumstances slipped from time to time.

And we should add, if you want to consider it, that Elena was a part of Covenant's second bargain. Encouraging her was part of his plan. This meant that he couldn't leave her, and he couldn't be cold with her, he had to become someone who enabled Elena's passions and encouraged her affections. This made it even more difficult to not be seduced by her - he could not simply escape her presence or her affections without sacrificing his plan - said plan being to save himself and his sanity.

[SGuilfoyle1966]

Elena wasn't raised by a madwoman. She was raised by a disturbed woman, then, when that woman went mad, a pretty solid guy.

[Sheol]

I think you are all making TC out to be more than he is. An anti-hero. Deep down he is despicable and vile. If the Land is truely a creation of his own mind, than the inhabatants of said creation would have the same capacity for behavior as he does. Perhaps each individual representing a certain aspect of himself. If so she would only be as crazy as he can be or is. If it is all real his behavior is his own if he chooses to accept it or not. Either way TC is the one with larger psychologial problems.

[mickywalker]

We are all slightly insane 2 read reread and go n a website about a rapist and remember covenant attempted to rape Eleanor but she told him to go ahead its not rape I want it.

Eleanor is as mad as coot but only covenant sees it he uses her physically,emotionally and as a surrogate for his own power or fear of it.

[CovenantJr]

I think you are all making TC out to be more than he is. An anti-hero. Deep down he is despicable and vile.

I'm not sure how anyone can read these books and come to that conclusion.

[Earthfriend]

The case can be made that Covenant is despicable and vile, just as he is admirable and pleasant. Venom and Argent. The paradox of the Wild Magic.

And he who weilds white wild magic gold
is a paradox -
for he is everything and nothing,
hero and fool,
potent, helpless -
and with one word of truth or trechery,
he will save or damn the Earth
because he is mad and sane,
cold and passionate,
lost and found.

[Sheol]

I couln't have said it better Earthfriend. I understand that he is constantly trying to reform himself. But as Yoda said, "Do not try. Do."

[Rigel]

Deep down he is despicable and vile.

So, that's your answer to the fundamental question of ethics, then?

Covenant is, first and foremost, honest with himself and true to his beliefs. That his fidelity requires him to deal falsely with his imagination is not something I would call despicable, but tragic.

It's hard to blame the guy, though, for trying to retain his grip on reality.

[Sheol]

I will say it again, and I am not making this up. He is an anti-hero. Don't forget that that is what this all about. How does he rationalize his relationship with Elena? How does Foul rationalize tormenting the inhabitants of the land with no gain? Why is it required that a mentally unstable person rationalize thier actions? Perhaps they do these things because they have an inability rationalize anything.

[StevieG]

I will say it again, and I am not making this up. He is an anti-hero. Don't forget that that is what this all about.

There are a number of GI entries over the past few years where SRD states his belief that his characters are not anti-heroes. Here is one such quote:

As I think (hope?) I've said before, I don't view my characters as "anti-heroes." Within my creative ethos, the term makes no sense. I think of my characters has troubled and damaged, but profoundly sympathetic, people who need to have intense stories happen to them (otherwise they'll be stuck where they are forever), and who need all the understanding I can give them in order to benefit from those stories. So, Do I enjoy the challenge? Does the payoff give me great satisfaction? Such questions don't have any particular meaning for me.

I don't mean to suggest that I feel neither enjoyment nor satisfaction, either while I'm working or after the work is done. But for me those emotions have nothing at all to do with the challenge of dealing with "anti-heroes," or with the payoff of finally making them "sympathetic." For me, they were sympathetic from the beginning. And every human being is the hero of his/her own story.

(07/15/2004)

Whether they have any ability to rationalise their actions, I don't know...