Townfulasonobitches USA

[danlo]

Aside from Dr. Benford and, sometimes, Megan Roman didn't u really despise most of the humans TC had 2 deal with before he was summoned and after? What a statement it makes about our humanity--and it's true! Somebody needs 2 start a poll about this, like "Who did u hate the most": The Sheriff, The Trucker, The Drunk, The Singer, Joan, etc...

[arwenavery]

the rucker is deffinatly one of my favourite characters of all time he encapsultes , bigotry , lack of self awareness, hypocrisy!!! jes hes even a heavy drinker !!! such a clear reflection of our humanity!!!!!!

[saltheart foamfollower123]

if i could choose, i'd say the sherrif is the worst of all of the counties badguys.
hes ignorant about tc's sickness. but not only that, hes so cocky and very very very very arogant.
"i dont need no trouble from some leper, this is my county and im in charge!"
in the illearth war, he treated Tc like crap, letting him walk 4 miles alone.
when the town patitioned to make TC move, who was the leader? wasnt it him?
throughout the entire series, hes completely a rude, jerk, punk.
another thought....
what about the woman w/ the kid who yelled at TC in LFB, on the first few paragraphs of the series????
no offense danlo, but the topic is an unadiquit one. because reallly, we only know like 4 characters from the town that tc lives in. its like srd makes us think that everyone hates him, so he represents everyone in the town as "hateful people" whos names and apearances are a mystery.
therefore, we cant just say "whos the worst?" when there is only like 3 characters who live in the town that we know throughout all 6 books.
people like susie thurstin (the singer) and the heavy drinking driver, should not be considered because they arent realy important character, they are just like xtras in a movie--there just for show; so it looks more realistc/cool.


p.s. i found the most unimportant character.
its either the lady alif or the drunk 20 year old in the illearth war

[Bannor]

Hey, I liked the Lady Alif, and I think she showed a lot of courage (after being a kind of wimp). She really helps TC and the crew escape (doesn't she?).

[sf]

oh, wAIT...
i MEANT benj the lady!!!
benj just stands there.
though alif is kindove an important character (even though she tries to seduce tc and knocked out brinn with that darn pouder stuff....)
the lady benj is an annoyance.
P.S. when i read TOT, the hustin were perfectly written. they where so cool at first, kinda like a bloodguard, then i found out they were bad

just for coinsedense, have you noticed that the creature CROYEL is basically the same concept as drinking a unicorns blood? in HPOTTER?
drink the blood, or get a croyel, makes the person who drinks it/gets one is damned for life the the exange of longer life/power. cool huh??
i had one other thing to say but i cant remember.

oh yea. off the subject for second. i need your help...
Ive been writing a story. its 58 pages long written, and i need your help..
i have a wand in the story and i used the name JHERRIN for the wand... i used it for a temporarily name. but its been 6 months and i still hasent found the name for the wand. can you help me brain storm. i dont want to plagerize/copyright!
if it helps, the wand is about 2 1/2 feet tall, is a gold rod with a black handal at the botum. at the top, is a regilar sized cristal ball that always sparkles when light touches it.
what cool name do you think it should be??? please help
the only thing i can think of is kraspin????
if you guys are intrested in my story, tell me, maybe you would like to read it????
i want to know what people think...
about the author
R is a talented young writer (12) and lives in tacoma washington. he lives with his parents and twosister, with one older brother. rocky enjoys to read the TC series and plays legoes and chess.
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NOW!! IS MY STONE AND SEA SIGNATURE RIGHT????

[danlo]

2 Townfullasonabitches USA and realitively insignificant characters in The Land. There r other folks from our world 2 talk about like Joan's parents, (oh no it's!!) Roger, the cultists, the evangelist tent crowd, the girl bitten by the snake...There was also a Townfullasonofbitches in The Land: It was called Crystal Stonedown. U might find this topic inadequate SHFF123 but u have 2 admit it got y'all talking--I 2 love 2 play with legos, am a "Hotwheel" collector and cartoon freak!--and I'm an oldie! I'd really like 2 c ur work, as well--Health and healing!

[Foamfollower1013]

NOW!! IS MY STONE AND SEA SIGNATURE RIGHT????

The "Stone and Sea" poem goes as follows:

Stone and Sea are deep in life,
two unalterable symbols of the world:
permanence at rest, and permanence in motion;
participants in the Power that remains.



~Foamy~

[Bannor]

It's an excellent topic, Danlo. I'd have to say that the sheriff was the worst. He typifies everything we don't want America to be. Always has to be a bad guy in every story.

[Hearthcoal]

Watch it with the Roger-bashing, Danlo (just kidding, ). I'm kind of attached to Roger-dodger. (Still, that's a discussion from another board.) I wonder what TC would have named his kid? Joan chose the name Roger.

SRD did dip a little into stereotypes when it came to our world: The Good Doctor, The Hypocritical Revivalist, The Bad Sheriff. (Seasauce was in law enforcement before he became Ship's Cook.)

Why would TC and Joan have moved there in the first place? Cost of living? Land? Horses? Country-living? Friends and family from a back-story we've never heard?

It seems to me that it is one thing to be a writer and to move to some little back-water community so that you can have peace and quiet while you pursue your creative endeavors and it is another thing entirely to plant your artistic self and your horsey wife smack in the middle of Bigot-ville. Was this really the place where the Covenants wanted to raise their children?

Moot point now, however, what with the leprosy and all.

[Bannor]

Nice take on the town, Hearthcoal. That group of people reminded me of the town council of Footloose!

[KaosArcana]

Playing Devil's Advocate here ...

It's really easy to just say the townsfolk are evil and bigoted, but
how much did they know about leprosy? Donaldson goes out of
the way to make sure that the reader knows that Covenant isn't
a danger to the community ... that he's not going to spread leprosy
by his simple act of BEING in the town, but the townsfolk don't know
that ...

I don't know how old everyone is who reads this board, but I can
remember before AIDS was a well-known disease ... when science
was still figuring out the causes of it ... I can remember when Ryan
White was struggling to attend school with other kids ...

The people who barred him from school weren't, for the most part,
acting out of malice. They were acting out of fear.

I figure that most of the people in Covenanttown were the same way.
They were terrified of Covenant, of his disease ...

And the fact that Covenant was pretty much of a jerk probably didn't
help his cause any.

(I still would love to see a Donaldson story of Covenant pre-leprosy ...
just to see what Covenant was like before he got the disease that came
to define his life. He was 30 when he was afflicted ... what did he do for
a living before he took up writing? He doesn't seem like the type to be
a teacher or reporter ... was he a professional student or what?)

[Hearthcoal]

You bring up some interesting points, KaosArcana.

I would think it safe to say that fear is one of the roots of bigotry. Fear of the unknown. Fear of someone or something that is different. The fear of finding out that you were wrong (pride plays a part here too).

The opposite of fear is courage. But, IMO, we do not understand courage. The popular view is that soldiers (going off to defend the country) or policemen (defending "us" from the bad guys) or firemen (saving "us" from danger) have courage. But "us", we don't need courage. Courage is for heroes, not everyday Joe Schmoes. But I think we everyday folk need it as much or more as those who face "real" danger upon occasions.

If courage is related to the willingess to set fear aside and put one's life on the line, then what greater courage could a person have than to set aside one's fear of AIDS or leprosy and put one's life on the line (so to speak) and get genuinely informed about and accept the Ryan White's and the Thomas Covenant's of our world?

The irony of all this is that, when one takes this courageous step, one often finds out that there is very little danger after all. (But the level of actual danger does not diminish the quality of courage. A person who overcomes percieved danger is no less courageous than a person who faces actual danger. I am reminded of Queen Esther from the Biblical Book of Esther - what a tale!!)

So, in addition to being bigots, the citizens of TC's home town (it's hard to call it that) were cowards. I am not sure which is worse. I think I would rather deal with malice (it's somewhat predictable) than cowardice.

The sad thing is that the "cure" for most cowardice is education. Face fear - learn about what scares you.

[Hearthcoal]

To Saltheart Foamfollower (aka Rocky)

I have posted a response to your mention of your story and your request for help in naming your wand at a new discussion topic

Welcome to the Loresraat II...

Let me know what you think.

[Hearthcoal]

We may be making history here. This is the first time I have heard Harry Potter compared to TOTC.

I suppose this calls for a new thread, because it is way, way off topic, but SF123 has made a comparison of the Croyel and drinking Unicorn's blood.

It seems to me that both are "deals with the Devil". But with the Croyel one gets into a symbiotic relationship, taken over, if you will, by a parasite.

[aliantha]

Hearthcoal, I'd bet that Joan picked out the farm, just like she pretty much decided everything else in their life -- and I'm sure she picked it because it had room for her horses. It probably didn't even occur to her that she'd be sending her kids to school with bigoted hicks -- or maybe she expected TC to make enough money so that Roger could go to boarding school. Who knows?

Rocky -- your wand sounds very cool! You could name it for a feature (Crystale or Crystallon, because of the crystal ball at the top) or for what it does. It could be the Diminisher or the Augmenter (whoa, those sound kind of sinister...). Or, shoot, I dunno, Aerleon (have no clue what that would mean, but it looks a little like "lion of the air" to me).

[Lauralin]

I wouldn't be so very hard on this town...or actually on Joan either. We really don't know very much about the town, the people in it, or Covenant before he got leprosy, accept what TC thinks about them. Whith the aception of the sherrif, the truck driver, and the guy at the revival, I really couldn't judge the people of that town on the info provided. When you (or TC) say that they were reacting in that manner because they were all ignorant bigots, you leave out a rather important consideration; namley that TC was a totaly unfreindly, nasty, mean, selfish, and obssesive (about his disease) jerk to anyone who wasn't patient and sympathetic enough to get to know him. No, I'm not really defending their behavior, but I am saying that it might have been understandable. Ever noticed what happened when anyone first became his friend? In fact I was wondering if these people were just weak, and didn't care enough to go to all that trouble for a person who had a disease which he wouldn't let you forget. Also, I NEVER noticed Covenant ever actually communicating whith anyone; a sociable person might tell others that it wasn't contagius, but then again did TC have any good friends? I'd say no, judging from the first crons. So maybe it was a combination of the people being ignorent hypochrits with weak charecters, this being the wrong town for this particular anti-social writer, and the fact that the book was written from Covenants point of view.
I personally don't think that most of them were quite so bad as TC thinks they are.....just confused and selfish humans.

Or I could be wrong....if so feel free to say so...

[danlo]

What Lauralin is proposing is sort of a "which came 1st the chicken or the egg" type of scenario. If u reread the beginning of "Golden Boy" the 1st chapt of LFB it appears that TC really wasn't, originally, that much of a "shut-in" antisocial writer that he appears 2b. --"But he saw that the people he passed, the people who knew him, who names and houses and handclasps were known to him..." it also goes on 2 say that he spoke about his book @ the town's little literary guild being all friendly and smilely with the ladies, sipping tea...We can sort of tell from how he looks back @ his book that he was a little self-obsessed and full of himself and that his view of his book as "self-absorbed fluff" is what gave him writer's block in the 1st place. So yes b4 he contracted leprosy he was pissed @ himself and mopping around the house, but in general it seemed like he had a friendly--@ least "working"--relationship w/many people in the town. You have 2 remember that this town was sorta isolated and only had 5,000 citizens. So the second ANYTHING goes wrong EVERYBODY knows about it!
---I, kinda, liken it 2 this: I was watching some "Dateline" (actually it was a PBS Frontline mini-series I had 2 watch 4 my Deviant Behavior sociology class in College...{ed. 2-15-03}) type of program about a little girl in Georgia who was missing and presummed killed by a supposed "Satanic cult" that involved 3 poor families living @ the edge of town. And when the officer who was leading the investigation was charged (by some little kid's wild imagination) as the leader of the cult his and all 3 family's lives were absolutely destroyed. It was all based on heresay--but that's how fast word and condemnation spread in that tiny little town.
---So if just 1 person said "leprosy is a deadly disease, it's contagious" the entire Townfulosonbitches could all very well believe that and condemn w/o information. What blows my mind is that u would think that the county health officials would @least try 2 educate the people about leprosy and @least 1 person, besides Dr. Berensford would have it in their heart 2 @least try 2 reach out 2 Covenant...It just shows u what's wrong w/the world that people judge and react w/o thinking and hardly ever use their hearts. Even Berensford keeps it a secret until he tells Linden. They TOTALLY ostracize TC and essentially turn Haven Farm in2 a one man "leper colony" by paying his bills and delivering food 2 him. No he was the town's dirty little secret (like locking mad uncle Ernie in the attic) out of sight out of mind--or like nuclear waste-"Not in my back yard!" Imho, yes it really WAS a Townfulosonabithes--my real ? is this--y did TC bother 2 stay there--he had the resources--he could have moved--perhaps he believed it was all hopeless and remained there wishing that some1 would come along and shoot him--in the meantime he just kept himself alive--what else could he do? Who wouldn't b bitter?
--Finally let me just purpose this about the friends he met in The Land, remember he doesn't believe any of this is real. So when he meets them he really isn't trying 2 b nasty 2 them--he basically talking 2 himself and his imagination--"I'm making u up--so up urs!" the real dillema is that he finds he CAN'T get out of his imagination and the "rape of Lena" thus becomes an fantastic disertation on reality vs fantasy and responsiblity vs selfishness!

[aliantha]

It is kind of sad that there wasn't even one person in town who was willing to be TC's friend, isn't it? OTOH, he probably did drive them away with his behavior.

I think TC might have been clinically depressed as a result of his disease, Joan leaving, etc. He was fairly high-functioning -- he could still keep track of himself well enough to do the constant VSEs -- but the "don't touch me" stuff is a classic hallmark of depression: an angry outburst that drives others away, just when the person needs help the most. I'm not disputing that the people in town avoided TC and that he was a target for the hatred of at least some of them, but whoever it was that said that the novel is told from TC's POV is right on: TC perceives everybody's behavior through the filter of his illness. He thinks they're avoiding him because he's leper outcast unclean, but it's possible that at least some of them are avoiding him because he's just flat weird.

Anyway, what I was going to say was that TC was probably so depressed that he couldn't even begin to think of a way out of his situation -- including the possibility of moving. Besides which, the house, like the ring, was one of the last things he still had from the life he shared with Joan. He was in no way emotionally ready to let it go.

[Hearthcoal]

Dr. Berenford remained the best friend he could be to TC throughout the series. And then there was TC's lawyer, Megan Roman; I would list her on the friend side (although she does tell him that she doesn't exactly like being his lawyer...but she's never backed down from a client and she doesn't mean to start with him).

It seems to me that SRD was clear that that majority of people in the town were not TC's friends (maybe enemies is too strong a word). In addition to the Sheriff, the truckdriver, the bar crowd and the revival, SRD includes:

1. There is the reaction of the town's folk when TC goes into town to pay a bill.
2. The grocer insists on delivering TC's groceries and drops them off at the end of the driveway.
3. Someone burns Joan's stables.
4. The local government decides to have Haven Farm zoned industrial.
6. The father of the snake bitten child immediately concludes that TC hurt his daughter (thank goodness he realizes what actually happened before it's too late for either his daughter or TC).
6. A nurse urges the Doctor to "do something" when she realized that TC wasn't going to die from the snake's venom.

In the Second series, I got the feeling that the town had come to a truce with TC. He still lived there, something of a recluse, but except for the Cult, I didn't sense that the townfolk were so focused on him anymore (it's as if they have gotten accustomed to him; he knows his place, and they know theirs).

[saltheart foamfollower]

hearthcoal iz right....
p.s. hearth coal, thanx for the articals