Elena, daughter of Lena

[Skyweir]

actually that is a very interesting slant .. if there existed a theme through the chrons based on TC's degree of culpability and his stand with respect to other's free will .. just how would such a premise work?

Sure his rape of Lena could be seen as a conflict between guilt and innocence <TC's act of volition disregarding or overcoming or overpowering Lena's volition> It may be seen that in this scenario TC was entirely guilty .. but of what really? Yes ok .. in the Land .. the rape of Lena .. but there were many levels to TC's actions ..

To be culpable of the crime of rape .. there must exist intent .. and sure he did intend what he did .. but to him it was not a reality .. just a dream .. a fantasy. There was no victim ..

And the second .. Elena and TC .. because they both of their own volition entertained .. albeit briefly .. sexual intimacy .. OK TC rejected the notion of sex with Elena because he accepted her as his daughter and the thought of incest was a taboo to him ..

Sucking the snake venim from the little innocent childs leg ... may well have sexual connotations .. but to me .. it seems a stretch .. Sure the snake passes nicely as a phallic symbol .. perhaps .. but I cannot see it falling into line with moral/ethical progression regarding TC's sexual dilemas or engagements ..

So TC rapes <commits criminal act>.. considers but rejects the commission of incest .. 'anti-rapes' <gains some semblance of personal redemption by saving an innocent from the penetration of the snake> .. and then has a healthy sexual relationship with LA in the 2nd chronicles <is finally rewarded with consensual sexual relations>.

Its truly intriguing .. but not really tight .. as one would expect an intended theme to be ..

[Hiltmark Quaan]

Your analysis is good, Skyweir, and adding Linden to the analysis is interesting. However, I believe this is less about sex and more about acting morally. If we ignore for a moment TC's relationship with Elena and look at just the rape and the snake bite, the two situations are almost perfectly antithetical:

While TC injures a girl in the "false" world, he saves a girl in the "real" world

The rape is selfish (its just a dream, as you pointed out), but saving the girl is selfless - and he rejects dream in favor of her.

TC believes his immoral act is amoral (at least in the beginning), but the snake's amoral act is cured by TC acting morally.

TC hurts Lena after being brought to health; he saves the girl while in the depths of his disease.

I would argue that these situations are deliberate and intentional - the crux of white gold is it is a paradox...

Thanks for discussing this - I've had this penciled in as marginalia in my copy of "The Power that Preserves" since the Eighties...

[Skyweir]

actually what you say is fascinating .. and you are correct there are parrallels .. that can be drawn .. to support the paradox as you say ..

So you say it is not about the varying elements that compliment each other is interesting .. injuring a girl in his dream/fantasy world - saving a girl in the real world .. is the most compelling of them all imo .. the snake bitten girl is still a bit of a stretch for me however .. but I like the rest of your analogy very much.

TC believes his immoral act is amoral (at least in the beginning), but the snake's amoral act is cured by TC acting morally.

I pretty well remember TC thinking his rape of Lena an immoral act immediately after committing it .. and he castigated himself for it right through both series of the chorns.

I really do like where you are going with this theme/theory .. and would like to discuss it further

[shrike]

Ever wonder what was behind the decision to make her high lord in the first place? Interesting how no one observed that she was nuts (though I guess with Covenant as her father what else could she be?) She had the charisma, but not the maturity. Mhoram was so obviously a better choice.

[Lord Mhoram]

I think she was crazy! She was obssesed with killing Foul....and she wanted to have a love affair with her dad. Too bad they don't have therapy in the Land. I think it sounds like a Jerry Springer show.

[Guest]

yes, the woman was really odd. i've never understood how she can become a lord, much less high lord. maybe just because she's tc's daughter and the lords want to brownnose him?

[duchess of malfi]

Hiltmark, you have some really interesting things to say about this! I would just like to point out that I'm rereading LFB now as part of the group reread, and so far it really strikes me that the folks in the Land might well be a pretty conservative group sexually. The whole incest thing bothers me, but it bothers me even more after realizing that sex in the Land is very probably reserved for commited realtionships. What exactly was Elena trying to do/accomplish in attempting to seduce TC? I have this gut feeling that she's violating at least two sexual rules/taboos here : incest, and also sex outside of marriage. WHY????? And wouldn't her position as High Lord require her to act in a moral fashion, a living example to the Land, as it were? So WHY??? Why would she act this way as a character, and why did Donaldson feel it important to the book (other than making the reader squirm)?

[Hile Troy]

... was nuts.

Aside from the whole wanting to know her father in a biblical sense,
she was just ... off. Like Triock said, she wasn't right from birth.

I never found Elena to be an attractive character ... physically, I
suppose she was attractive, but I never sensed the charisma that
she was supposed to have.

If I'd been Covenant, I'd have been scared of her too.

Elena was definitely a troubled person and ethically challenged. SRD gives you insights on this character throughout the TIW book. Like the note Triock dropped on TC. However Elena is one of the most critical characters collectively in the both chronicles. The Fall of Elena with the destruction of the Law of Death and her final battle with Kevin's hopelessly corrupted shade is very dark and tragic moment. She is one of the Chronicles most tragic figures. She is very misled by her personal sense of service to the land.

Edit note: Significant=critical

[aliantha]

Hiltmark, I think your comments are interesting, too! And I wonder...I know that SRD has said that everything in these books is there for a reason, that he's crafted them all very carefully, but I wonder whether even *he* noticed this symbolism he had put in the books.... I say that because I've met authors who, upon hearing a reader expound on this or that parallel, stop and say, "Y'know, I never thought about that before. Hmm, you could be right."

[Guest]

Whoever truly believes Covenant is the “real father” “Elena’s father” etc. is more ethically challenged and crazier than they think Elena is. When she said Triock was the "father of her heart" that meant exactly that: Triock was the one who performed as her father, raised her/looked after her, and gave her the love and affection that she needed as a child. I'm thinking that more than well qualifies Triock the father, because that is what a father is--period. Covenant's not the father in that sense. Biologically he is--and that's where it ends. He’s the ‘sire of her blood’ or whatnot--nothing more, nothing less. And don't compare the taboos of current-day society to the Land’s taboos...wait a minute, what taboos? There are never any expounded upon by any inhabitants of the Land, except rape, I think. So who except SRD knows?

[Guest]

Hello fellow guest! You sure nailed the "who is a REAL father" on the head. But I have to disagree about a bit of the rest. Most societies in our world would have a great big frown on her having a sexual relationship with EITHER man. And the folks in the Land seem to be a conservative bunch. How many scanitlly clad people in bikinis are running around? How many children do you see out of wedlock? How many unmarried couples are sneaking out into the bushes? I think that people in the Land would be "displeased" by her being with either man in that sort of context, too.

[Guest]

"I think that people in the Land would be "displeased" by her being with either man in that sort of context, too."

And who more than Trell would be so?!

But contrary to others above, I don't think Elena should qualify for the nut bin.
Through the author's pen (I don't know if SRD uses a pen or typewriter or pc or mac...) we are given a few glimpse of some characters thoughts (mostly TC, but sometimes others), but Elena's were hidden to us (if I remember rightly).
So who knows what went through her mind in those sensuous moments with her biological father? Could it be that she wanted TC to 'feel' again that libido that made him rape her mother? Why? Maybe to break TC's passivity towards the Land, to make him feel more 'alive' (rather than 'living a dream'). Sure, slapping him silly and saying "You're not asleep! You would be waking up right now if you were!" could have been tried, but why not use a smoother approach...

It is TC's sexual drive and frustations that had driven him once to an extreme (altough a terrible one); but since that first outburst, the plight of the Land had been secondary to him: he cared only for what it represented to him, according to his interpretation of what he experienced. That was mainly intellectual: but the rape he seemed he couldn't comfortably fit into that scheme of his.
Intimacy was still somehow sacred for him, although/because he had been deprived of it for so long, and his illness (and how he dealt with it) promised him he wouldn't get some anymore ('some', as in intimacy, not only sexual).
So maybe, maybe, Elena saw that, or saw into that, understood a bit more than any other this side of TC, probably by listening to her mother talking about TC for so long, adding to that Atiaran's own input (until and including the fact of her death), and all she had heard about him, about the reluctant messiah, especially after she became a Lord, and then High Lord.

Her world what to be utterly destroyed by a mad remorseless entity, and one of the only hope it had resided in another mad entity that dared to say they were just a part of his imagination...
So why care about taboos, if by his libido and his need for intimacy, and ultimately by his need to Touch and be Touched, she could bring him to feel more alive in this Land and to care just sufficiently to help them save it? They probably have this incest taboo too, and provoking a reaction from TC that way could be to give him a good reason to reconsider his behavior: if he's disturbed at being kissed by her, despite his unbelief, it may help him accept the Land just enough to go on defending it.
If, in the Land, he hesitates between his needs and his values, then he might realise the Land has more importance to him than he thinks, and make him reconsider his future actions, before he goes on and rapes the Land itself.

I don't think and feel the above captures all that SRD wanted to put in Elena's kiss and behavior towards TC. As was said a few posts away, she's one hell of a tragic figure in TCTCTU, one that embodies the hope, the love, the passion and then the despair of those who wanted to defend/save the Land despite TC's unbelief, to later become and serve what she most hated, the price of her inescapable failure (the 'victory' was to be Lord Mhoram's, as in the painting, but she fought despite the prophecy).

(As for why she became the High Lord... they did have some kind of mind-meld (or telepathic conversation, like the Lords could have), and all knew then who she was, and probably also sensed some 'power' in her... After all, "You are the white gold" Mhoram said to TC, and maybe some 'glitter' was transmitted from TC to Elena ('white power' intoxication, like alcool or drug intoxication some addicted pregnant women can transmit to their foetus))

Hmmm... hope I made some sense...

[danlo]

Dear guest(s),
You make some VERY interesting and controversial points and ur commentary and insight is very important 2 this discussion. However it would b REALLY nice if one of u or both of u took the time 2, at least, make up some kind of name that we could ID and acknowledge u by...It looks like u r talking 2 urself and it is unfair 2 the members of this board.

[duchess of malfi]

Um, Guest #3? The one with the long post about Elena right before Lord Danlo's? I really liekd you post. Well thought out, and it brought a new perspective about Elena to me. Thanks!

[coercri000]

C'mon guys....it's all there in the book, if you have some experience to fall back upon, rather than just literary knowledge or academic learning.

Hearthcoal has been closest so far.

Put yourself in Elena's place ; her hero, who alsohappens to be her father shows up in the early/ mid days of her her adulthood. He can save her....he can save her world. Of course she wants to "be " with him (sim in many ways to Morn ).

Covenant can adjust to the newly realized perception of family (children) almost instantly; he has "been" there before, too, unlike Elena, in that parental role at least.

TC has leprosy, is a rapist, is an Unbeliever, is a potential world destroyer; SRD is fulfilling the author's duty, making us squirm, jump and riding roughshod over our emotions and fondly/stupidly held beliefs-which most of us do naff all to uphold, even when we realise we have some.

In "gypsy"/Romany/travelling societies families used to, and still do, expecy Granny to introduce "the boys" to the mysteries of sexual delights. We are reluctant to accept this (HA!) and do not like to know about it; the same in this Land, as written by the author.

Get into it and experience it the only legit/acceptable way....second hand, and accept your uncomfortableness about it.

[[Syl]]

Sexual attraction between family members who have been separated all their lives is not uncommon. Great article with links to reports and such fromplastic.com here.

[coercri000]

tyvm Caer,

liked the article , but not those posts which I read, (and quickly grew bored of....ooops).

I do not think that the learned article says so much dif from what I said (interpretation & language ?), but do think it expresse it somewhat more eruditely, and certainly more scientifically.

My experience is more "hands on", if you'll pardon the expression, having worked in these areas for a looong time.

Probably because of this, I tend to see the "shocking elements" of TC (and of which I think there are many) to be ONE of the strenghts of The Books. SRD mattempts to make us look DEEP inside ourselves, and feeeel, and hence, hopefully , to think. (The mark of a brilliant author.)

ty for the personal and considered response.

[[Syl]]

Not a problem, and I completely agree on the posts. Good site, but you have to skim the replies. That article stuck with me when I read it because it occured to me that I do have at least two half-sisters out in the world, and wouldn't that be seriously messed up if...

I think if it wasn't for the violence inherent in the other major shocking event, this subject would get more coverage. Well, that and incest is one of the few major taboos left to our society, so we tend not to talk about it. That too will change eventually, I'm sure. As things are now, though, it's only a soap opera plot device.

[coercri000]

Caer , agree , but soap opera.....Ha, avoidance !

If you feel like the aggressor , the trick is to not engage.

If you are the victim , the skill is to transmute from victim to survivor.

All people avoid this topic , (and I ... hmmm... am bad to people who can't control their unexplored feelings.

As I said , at the heart of all SRD's works.

[matrixman]

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