An argument that the Land is a dream

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

Spoiler

In Against All Things Ending, maybe two or more times Linden points out her lack of direct knowledge of the Land as Covenant first encountered it (I clearly remember that she notes this about Morinmoss redeeming "the covenant").

Next, consider how different the Land's Earth is each time it's visited. The discrepancies in Haruchai history, for instance, could indicate that this planet really *is* just a dream. There are recurring objects, but then Donaldson accepts some kind of Jungian archetype theory of dreams (I think). Doesn't going from an innocent environmentalist republic or whatever, to a totalitarian dictatorship perpetrating genocidal blood sacrifice, and from the majesty of the Land to the nightmare of the Sunbane, to now this chaotic flux of violent alien forces, kinda sound like having dreams about a similar place but, due to their unreality, suffering these colossal alterations in that locale's content?

Subconscious inspiration can unite people's imaginations outside their knowing intent. We know Linden and Covenant are similar in personality in crucial ways. Doesn't it stand to reason that if both were randomly met by a cryptic homeless man who made them feel mysteriously challenged, and dealing with the concepts underwriting the cult, and on and on, that they could pretty much share a dream? Only it could not be just like the dream Covenant had about the Land ten years earlier. So it's massively deformed.

A slippery internal logic allows this explanation to make only as much sense as its alternative, though. I see good evidence for the parallel-universe thesis, also. I'm just trying to come up with a way for the Land to really be imaginary (for Covenant and Linden as well as for readers) despite its appearance of chronological order.

[chaplainchris]

No. Not for me, I mean. Yes, interesting thoughts, and I think SRD wants us to think stuff like this. But I find the shared dream theory *far* more incredible (as in, I cannot give it credence) than the parallel worlds one. For one, Linden and Covenant have to both be dreaming at the same time, and be in telepathic contact with each other. That is necessary for us to get both POVs during the Last Chronicles as well as the 2nd Chronicles, and for those POVs. It's also necessary for Linden to have *any* knowledge of what Covenant's gone through in the past, it's the only way she could know any of his stories. And while the Land is changed each time, those changes are logical, explained (eventually), and the result of what has gone before. The Upper Land's change from edenic to hellish via the Sunbane is a result of the destruction of the Staff of Law and the influence of Lord Foul, as one example.

So I don't find the dream theories at all persuasive.

[chaplainchris]

I meant to say "That is necessary for us to get both POVs during the Last Chronicles as well as the 2nd Chronicles, and for those POVs" <i> to match up</i>.

In other words, when we switch from one consciousness to another, both consciousnesses have experienced the same events. That's impossible if it's a dream, unless they're telepathically dreaming the same dream. Jungian-style archetypes do not suffice.

Also, TC and LA's experiences of the Land are experiences where they (subjectively) experience months of sequential time (barring the occasional caesure) with absolute physical reality, including hunger, eating, eliminating, tiredness, sleeping and dreaming within the dream (!), and a world of logical consequence rather than dream logic. *Dreams* do not work this way. Schizophrenic breaks might work this way, but in that case, it's not a dream but a delusion (which seems to be TC's real fear in the first Chronicles - not that he's having a dream but that he's experienced a psychotic break). And in any case, if TC and LA are "real" figures, then they'd still need telepathy to sync up their schizophrenic realities.

All of this makes me go for the parallel world answer every time.