Why didn't the Creator heal Thomas' stab wound? (Spoiler)

Post by **Revan** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 3:39 pm

I alway wondered... Because the Creator is more than able... why didn't he heal Thomas... Seems odd to me...

Post by **Furls Fire** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 4:03 pm

Covenant had to make that choice. He chose to sacrifice himself to Foul, both in our world and in the Land. If the Creator had intervined, it would have thwarted Covenant's choices. Thomas knew that the only way to rid the Land of Foul the second time was to give him the ring, and let Foul kill him so he could stand in front of the Arch of Time. If the Creator had healed the stab wound, that couldn't have happened.

Also, don't forget, Covenant healed himself in the Land on Kevin's Watch when he and Linden first arrived.

In the First Chrons, the Creator only healed Covenant of the anti-venom poisoning after Covenant chose to be healed. In WGW, that was not Covenant's choice. He knew he had to die.

Post by **Revan** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 4:06 pm

He could have healed Thomas, and then Linden could have brought him back to life...

Post by **Furls Fire** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 4:08 pm

In order for Covenant to sacrifice himself, and die in the Land, he had to die in our world as well. The Creator couldn't have healed him. It wasn't Covenant's choice.

It also works the other way as well. When Covenant sends Lindan back at the end of The One Tree, he says to her... "Save my life". She can't, because "he" was not actually there. She then throws herself into the bonfire and he pulls her back. So, he was "unsavable" after he sacrificed himself to Foul. He was "dead".

Post by **Revan** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 4:11 pm

Then why didn't Covenant even think of praying to that dude, the Creator. What an idiot!

Post by **Furls Fire** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 4:15 pm

Because, he died in The Land. He couldn't be saved after that. He was no longer there. It's complicated and hard to explain. But I understand what Donaldson did here. Way back in The Wounded Land, the sacrifice was already decided on. When Covenant sacrificed himself for Joan, the wheels were set in motion for his ultimate sacrifice. The Creator's hands were tied in this...Covenant made his choice.

Post by **Revan** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 4:18 pm

Your right... but it upsets me that's all...

Post by **Furls Fire** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 4:21 pm

me too

But, SRD said in an interview...

"With both the Laws of Life and Death broken, there is no reason why Thomas Covenant can't come back..."

So, there is hope that we will see our hero again.

Post by **danlo** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 4:21 pm

What Furls said has always been good enuf 4 me..calm down u blasphemous fool!

Post by **Revan** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 4:22 pm

LOL! Sorry... But I think that TC will be a bad guy in the Third Chronicles...

Post by **Furls Fire** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 4:32 pm

I don't think so..

In another interview, and I've quoted it somewhere before, SRD says...

OK. In a hundred words or less. In the First Chronicles, Thomas Covenant faces Lord Foul and defeats him. In the Second Chronicles, Thomas Covenant surrenders to Lord Foul and accepts him. In the Last Chronicles, Thomas Covenant becomes Lord Foul. Following the psychological paradigm through, what happens at the point that you become your own other self is that you become whole, and the universe is made new.

Now, I take this to mean that by Thomas becoming Foul is how he stops Foul from breaking thru. SRD says this time around that Foul corrupts time itself. Okay...who is the Keystone of the Arch of Time? Covenant. Does this mean that Foul corrupts Thomas? I don't think so. I think that Thomas is the only thing holding it all together. By Thomas finally becoming Foul, the whole thing flies apart, and the Land is destroyed as it is and is made new....but free of the Despiser

I don't think Thomas literally becomes Foul and sets out to destroy the Land....

I could be wrong tho...Look what SRD to the Land in TWL???

Post by **duchess of malfi** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 4:38 pm

That's the thing, right there, Furls. Donaldson is so gifted and creative a writer, we can really have no idea of what he will do until we are able to read it.

Post by **Furls Fire** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 4:39 pm

You can say that again

Post by **Nav** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 5:27 pm

Yeah, we'll just have to wait and see.

Personally I think Covenant will be resurrected much in the same way as Hollian. Now that SRD has told us about Foul's corruption of time itself, I suspect we will find out that Covenant and Berek are one and the same person. Or not.

Post by **Xar** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 11:58 pm

The Berek and Thomas case has been done before in another thread, so I'm not going to repeat myself here

As for why the Creator didn't heal Covenant's wound - well, there are many reasons, the main ones being already explained in this thread.

1) It was his free choice to sacrifice himself; to heal him or resurrect him would have meant robbing him of his choice, but not just that; it would have meant robbing him of the meaning of his act, and demeaned him;

2) As for Covenant not praying to the Creator... it's the same reason why, at the end of the First Chronicles, he didn't ask the Creator for a cure for leprosy. He wouldn't demean himself or the Creator by asking such a thing after his sacrifice.

3) Besides, ever since his caamora in the Banefire, he was an integral part of the Arch of Time, and even more so once Foul burned away the venom in him, after he was killed; it is in my mind that he probably COULDN'T be brought back to our world any longer ( remember: whenever he returned back to our world from the Land, he was truly no longer there, as shown by the krill of Loric; and if he had returned to our world at the end of the Second Chronicles, his disappearance - the disappearance of the keystone of the Arch of Time! - would have made the whole Arch collapse, destroying the Land forever, and freeing Foul, even though diminished ), that he was too tied to the Land by then. And he couldn't be healed or resurrected in the Land, either - because the Creator couldn't affect the Land without breaking the Arch of Time.

But in the end, I think that the concept of "death" has largely become meaningless in the Land, after the breaking of both Laws of Life and Death, and especially in Covenant's case, since he has transcended mere mortal nature and become something metaphysical - he is wild magic, and wild magic by definition cannot be slain. Here's a thought; perhaps now TC's ability to manifest in the physical world is related to the white gold ring, in that its presence, "awakening" wild magic, brings TC back into the world; so, when Linden left the Land, he couldn't manifest again, but when she returns, the sudden reappearance of the ring will give him the ability to manifest again... just a thought!

Post by **Loredoctor** » Thu Feb 05, 2004 3:35 am

I think that TC's state of body in the Land had to match the state of his body in our world. He couldn't be healed in our world of the knife wound, so he received a fatal chest blow from the Despiser.

Post by **Wonderer** » Thu Feb 05, 2004 11:46 pm

I have to say after reading Furl's take on the third coming TC saga it seems she could be right on the money.I'm sure all of us really hated to see TC die but the reality is that if he hadn't then LF would have won.TC understood this and made his choice and although he would have liked to spent the rest of his days in this world with Linden I believe that he had already lost too much to really trust that could ever really work out; so his choice was that much easier, leave what you couldn't ever have and save what you had learned to love.

Post by **Revan** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 11:47 am

I agree... but I wished we had and they lived happily ever after story...

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 7:04 pm

Furls Fire wrote:me too

But, SRD said in an interview...

"With both the Laws of Life and Death broken, there is no reason why Thomas Covenant can't come back..."
So, there is hope that we will see our hero again.

"Blood and hell!" Thomas Covenant said hoarsely after coming back to life in the Last Chronicles, "I can't believe I'm stupid enough to try this a third time!"

Post by **Furls Fire** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 4:48 pm

I can just hear that!!!

"Hellfire and bloody damnation, do I have to do this yet again? I'm tired! Get Berek to do it this time!"