halfway through..... disappointed.

[danlo]

I'm still so whiped out by the destruction of Kevin's Watch I can't see straight...

[Variol Farseer]

And Linden is no more responsible for the ceasures in giving Joan her own ring back than, for example, Apple is responsible for subway muggings and music piracy because they sell people Ipods.

Both subway muggings and music piracy existed long before Apple introduced the iPod. There was never any such thing as a caesure until Linden gave white gold to a madwoman.

Everything Linden has done so far serves to beautifully illustrate the Law of Unintended Consequences. Where I hold Linden morally culpable is that she shows little sign of even caring whether her actions have any consequence other than the one she has in mind.

If I may be permitted to quote myself:

The Wardhall Grammary defines side-effect in these useful terms: 'The principal effect of an action, when ignored by persons who would rather direct their attention to a small incidental benefit.'

Compared to the threatened destruction of the Arch of Time, the rescue of Jeremiah is a small incidental benefit. But Linden is too busy playing Dirty Harriet to see that.

[alanm]

And Linden is no more responsible for the ceasures in giving Joan her own ring back than, for example, Apple is responsible for subway muggings and music piracy because they sell people Ipods.

Both subway muggings and music piracy existed long before Apple introduced the iPod. There was never any such thing as a caesure until Linden gave white gold to a madwoman.

I have to disagree at this point. As far as we where all concerned at the end of White Gold Wielder, Lord Foul had been totally defeated by Thomas Covenant. The Sunbane had been defeated by Linden and then a completely new staff of Law had been given back to the people of the Land. I would say that until Roger appeared on the scene in ROTE I bet that Linden had never given a thought to the fact that Lord Foul was back.

This is, IMHO, a great inconsistency in ROTE amongst other inconsistencies.

[Usivius]

Variol, I can't believe you, of all people, can't see that Linden's intentions are no different than those of TC ... and that's what makes them both great literary characters. In the first crons. TC didn't save the Land for any grand purpose other than to 'get it over with' and leave. Sure, by the end, he felt love enough for the Land and its enhabitants to care outside his own personal box, but that was by the end, after he wnet through such a long, whine-fest himself.
Linden's utter love for her son blinds her to the larger consequences, true, but this is what is going to make her a great character (I think), in that she, too, will see through to a larger picture and together with The Revenant, will redeem her/themselves...

Oh... it's going to be a great series..

.......JUST GET ON WITH IT DONALDSON!!

... sorry for the rant...

...

[wayfriend]

Linden did create one caesure personally.

Oops, you're right. She did create that last one. (At least, so it seems ... )

Both subway muggings and music piracy existed long before Apple introduced the iPod. There was never any such thing as a caesure until Linden gave white gold to a madwoman.

Yeah, you can stretch an analogy too far. How about if I say instead: giving someone something doesn't make you responsible for the bad things that someone subsequently chooses to use it for. Especially when that thing has uses which are not bad. Plus, as no_limits points out, how could she have known? Plus, as I now point out - it's Joan's own ring!

[Xar]

Plus - there was no reason for Linden to believe that Joan's ring or madness would threaten the Land (after all, as far as she remembered, Foul was after Covenant's white gold ring, or otherwise - logically - Foul could have summoned a host of unsuspecting people with white gold rings, set them loose on the Land, and waited until one destroyed the Arch of Time or decided to ally with him and give him the ring). And - as correctly pointed out earlier - it is Joan's own ring, after all.

Would you take responsibility if you gave an apparently (as far as you can see) innocuous person a stick, and that person suddenly turned out to be a psychopath and used the stick to kill someone? There is such a thing as taking responsibility too far - human beings are not able to foresee all possible consequences of their actions, that's why we often have to hope for the best. Linden's act of giving Joan back her own ring was an act done out of kindness, to ease Joan's suffering - it shouldn't be held as a terrible act of foolishness on Linden's part. Covenant likely would have blamed himself; Linden likely realized she couldn't foresee Foul had had Joan possessed by a Raver, or that Joan would have gotten to the Land, or that Roger would have been Foul's tool - and therefore, that she did the best she could do with the knowledge she had then.

[Nerdanel]

I think Linden didn't do wrong when she gave Joan her ring, but when she travelled to the past to retrieve the Staff, THAT was wrong.

I'm currently rereading Lord Foul's Bane. It surprises me how much the feel resembles Runes. I think it's that they are both first books, and unlike in The Wounded Land, things are superficially okay in the beginning so that we can travel around falling in love while evil pops up only occasionally. Also both Linden and Covenant don't care about the Land that much, particularly initially, since Covenant is busy unbelieving and Linden, who has never seen the Land at full health, is preoccupied with her missing son.

[Avatar]

How about if I say instead: giving someone something doesn't make you responsible for the bad things that someone subsequently chooses to use it for.

Now that, I totally agree with WayFriend. We are all responsible for our own actions, not the actions of others.

Of course, I'm not sure that Joan intended to do any such thing with it anyway, so it may be a moot point.

That said though, I do think that Linden was wrong to give her the ring, but not that she was responsible for what Joan did with it (or was forced to do with it). I also don't think that she was wrong to seek the Staff of Law.

I do think she's wrong to put so much focus on Jeremiah though.

--A

[NickS]

Wtf happened to my post in this thread? Was it deleted because I thought Runes had a cheap cliffhanger of an ending? It did!

[Nerdanel]

We had a hacking incident on this forum. We lost all the posts from the better part of the week when everything had to be restored from a backup.

[dlbpharmd]

Wtf happened to my post in this thread? Was it deleted because I thought Runes had a cheap cliffhanger of an ending? It did!

What nerdanel said - there's no way anything that you say in criticism of Runes would ever be deleted by anyone here. Please feel free to repost you comments.

[Frostheart Grueburn]

I'm having similar feelings--slightly over halfway through, and I find it entirely lacking the magic of the first two chrons, and have several times groaned under my breath at the tuuurgid slooowness of eeeverythiiing. The beginning I found mildly gripping, even had one of those holding-my-breath moments during Anele's tale about the One Forest, but thereafter the story just seems to lapse into endless cycles of eating, repetition of repetition of old events, and descriptions of the same mountains, stars, and treasureberries over and over again.

Linden--what in the seventeen hellpits happened to her? She seems so one-dimensional and vexatious, completely different from the complex character--albeit occasionally annoying--I really liked in the 2nd chrons. The supporting cast furthermore stands an umpteen floors below Atiaran, Foamfollower, Sunder, etc. in terms of being interesting and believable. Only Anele, in a Gollum-ish fashion, has kindled my sympathies so far.

Frankly, I'm a bit scared to continue, in case I'm going to be represented with 50 descriptions of tasting aliantha instead of a proper plot.

I'm horribly missing Covenant, the grouchy, sarcastic, ill-tempered bastard that first made me fall in love with this series. And the Giants. Oh, the Giants.

[Vain]

hang in there - it gets better...much much better

[Frostheart Grueburn]

Well, 'hanging in there' produced some good results; finished Fatal Revenant a smidgen of days ago (won't go into spoilers here....) and my faith in SRD's plot-weaving has been restored. Even so, ROTE remains a dire disappointment. Due to the dragging repetition, my concentration kept slipping so much out of focus that entire chapters turned into mere vague, gray smears in my memory, and usually I'm quite good at remembering details. >_< On the other hand, this is scarcely the first time some favorite author of mine cooks up a half-unreadable wastepaper heap; I guess everyone has their peaks and relapses.

IMHO, with some heavy-handed editing this might've become as thrilling as any of the previous volumes. One of my biggest issues pertains to the overly grandiloquent depictions of something as simple as eating--when the same technique is applied to both significant happenings (finding the staff, etc.) and such trivial incidents again and again, the style becomes overused and briefly loses its impact. Luckily in FR, the reader doesn't need to witness the consuming of a berry's every single atom with page-long hornblows and fanfares.

Also 'ants of fornication': I almost snorted something up to my nose while stumbling upon this expression. Pardon me, but just too inadvertently hilarious.