This is correct: Mhoram's outlook, somewhere in LFB I believe, was that the Oath of Peace preserved a sort of defeat of integrity, that following it would keep the Lords from despairing in the face of defeat. But it would not prevent them from being defeated. For Mhoram, the only hope was the wild magic graven in every rock.The Oath of Peace DOES in itself equal insufficiency.
Actually, I believe that they did at least suspect his necessity: in the stories about the creation of the land given to TC in Revelstone in Lord Foul's Bane, they question whether despite "moved behind the hand of creation" or something like that (but ultimately resolve they don't know enough). The place that Donaldson suggests the lords were wrong was in their own self-assuredness in placing themselves as Foul's opponents: I believe that Covenant looks on their efforts and sees them as self-destructive followers of Foul's machinations.Sure, the people of the Land were aware of Foul, but they didn't appreciate his necessity, the fact that Destruction is simply the other half of Creation.
The rape of Lena seems to generally be read as Covenant's inability to control himself, in part due to hurtloam, I don't entirely agree with that. It is precisely at the moment that Lena suggests that the reality Covenant came from is a dream that Covenant lashes out at her - if it can be believed, I suggest that it is from fear and hatred that Covenant rapes Lena because he suspects that her, and the Land - which he had only a little prior considered a pleasant dream not to be avoided - are a mechanism of his subconscious mind designed to drive him mad: as he says to Foamfollower later, he fears that dreams "never forgive." So it's not really that he's overmastered for his lust for Lena as he is for his hatred that the dream is trying to overcome his reality.A survival machine. And then as soon as he got to the Land, he flipped to the opposite side of the passion/control spectrum and raped Lena.
I'm not sure if what I just said has been said before, but I thought I would say it, because fear doesn't seem like a passion to me (but maybe it is.
One thing I will chime in is that I really admired the perhaps naive way that Prothall tried to reason with Drool Rockworm at the end of Lord Foul's Bane before taking the staff from him, and that he did so without killing Drool (though Drool died anyway).
A lot has been said about the Oath of Peace's strictures regarding passion and violence, but what is to be said of the way it mandates service of earth and earthpower as though things less capable or completely incapable of self-awareness were worthy of preservation and care?
