Don't touch me?

[peter]

Why, when he has just 'resurected' Linden by nearly drowning her, does TC then refuse her touch with his charachteristic 'Don't touch me!'. She loves him, he loves her, she clearly desperately needs it - what purpose is served by his rejection of her. I don't get it.

[shadowbinding shoe]

Guilt - he has a (former) wife and she is right around the corner. And he intends to leave her in the near future to confront Joan. He has no idea how that confrontation would affect him. He considers that it would taint him to her if he becomes a murderer.

And not to forget he just committed a horrendous crime against his daughter Elena (tying in to Linden's own problematic relationship with her father). He feels too tainted for intimacy.

[wayfriend]

My thought that Covenant was thinking about The Isle of the One Tree. Then, he had tried to have a relationship without mentioning that he was already dead. That didn't work out too well. So now he's more honest, although harsher: he won't let himself have a relationship with something like that hanging over his head.

"Linden, please. I’m not ready. I’ve lost too much of myself. I’m afraid of what I’m becoming. Or what I might have to be. I need to find that out before - "

Covenant won't put Linden in a false position again - where he can't promise that he will always be around to love her.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Now that wayfriend mentioned that, a very serious question needs to be addressed. Being killed in the "real" world translates to being killed in the Land and Covenant is dead in both places. If he is now resurrected in the Land, what does that mean for Covenant in the "real" world? Surely he hasn't suddenly been revived and is in a coma-like state whereever it is he is buried, right? Or is it completely possible to be alive there but not here? Presumably he will die again by the end of TLD.

Derail.

[dlbpharmd]

I admit that this is a sticky point. It's not an automatic certainty that death in the real world translates to death in the Land. Hile Troy died in the real world a long time before he was changed to Caer Caveral in the Land, and thousands of years before he actually died.

[Krilly]

I don't think the form you take or your existence in the Land has any bearing on your "real world" self. It's just that dying traps you because you have no existence to return to. BUT it seems the Creator has some sort of say in that matter. At the end of the first Chronicles he basically gave him a choice to either die in the real world and live happily (but trapped) in the Land or be removed from the Land and healed in the real world. I suppose it's possible he can give them all that choice again.

Buy yeah. TC is basically pulling the "It's not you, baby, it's me." on Linden.

[Akasri]

I don't think the form you take or your existence in the Land has any bearing on your "real world" self. It's just that dying traps you because you have no existence to return to.

That's the way I've always looked at it as well.

You can either exist or not exist in either world. However, if you don't exist in one world, you can't go to that world any more.

[peter]

Now that wayfriend mentioned that, a very serious question needs to be addressed. Being killed in the "real" world translates to being killed in the Land and Covenant is dead in both places. If he is now resurrected in the Land, what does that mean for Covenant in the "real" world? Surely he hasn't suddenly been revived and is in a coma-like state whereever it is he is buried, right? Or is it completely possible to be alive there but not here? Presumably he will die again by the end of TLD.

Derail.

I think TC is 'manifested' again in the Land rather than being alive as such. What we are getting is an avatar of the Arch rather than the 'real TC' as we first knew him walking along the sidewalk.

re My post - perhaps this actually answers the very question I posed. I'm not entierly happy with the guilt thing - TC has carried enough of that in his time and has not hidden himself from Linden before on that score. And which one of us knows where we will go in our lives before we make commitments to people we love; hellfire ( ) thats part of the risk of life. The bennefits of close physical support at this time in the story for both Linden and TC have to outway any 'I don't know how this is going to end' fears - they both know the score, they know what situation they are in. You would not push your wife away because you were going to war, you'd pull her all the closer. Thus I think maybe there is an end for TC that is beyond out current thinking in terms of life/death/return to the sky etc.

[wayfriend]

Now that wayfriend mentioned that, a very serious question needs to be addressed. Being killed in the "real" world translates to being killed in the Land and Covenant is dead in both places. If he is now resurrected in the Land, what does that mean for Covenant in the "real" world? Surely he hasn't suddenly been revived and is in a coma-like state whereever it is he is buried, right? Or is it completely possible to be alive there but not here? Presumably he will die again by the end of TLD.

Derail.

Heck, that's nothing. Let's really mix it up: What happens if Covenant or Linden goes back in time to when he/she was alive in the real world? Now what happens?

[Krilly]

Simple. You summon yourself, murder yourself, and then return safely to the real world; hijacking your old self's body. Muahaha...

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Heck, that's nothing. Let's really mix it up: What happens if Covenant or Linden goes back in time to when he/she was alive in the real world? Now what happens?

She already did--when she got translated 10,000 years into the past. Let's see...if Covenant were in his mid-30s in the first novel and we are now 20 in the future from that, then she traveled 27 of our years into the past, so Covenant would have been in his late 20s in our world. Thank goodness she didn't translate back here for a bit--that could have been awkward.

[DoctorGamgee]

And see...I had gathered that TC had spent so much time as the Arch of Time that when reanimated, (unscrambling all that he knew as the Arch and trying to put it into his human brain) that he had gone on auto-pilot and simply reverted to his training as a leper. I don't remember, but wouldn't that have been one of the first things he had said to Lena when he was found on his first visit? Perhaps someone who knows can correct me.

Just speculation...sorry.

Doc

[Vraith]

I think TC is 'manifested' again in the Land rather than being alive as such. What we are getting is an avatar of the Arch rather than the 'real TC' as we first knew him walking along the sidewalk.

I don't have my book, and my memory of the exact details is too fuzzy to address your larger/original question.
But the above point...I think something else.
I think we are seeing exactly a real, living TC.
Because truly resurrecting him to fully human is another, maybe the last, necessary breaking of Law in order to enable a conclusion that is not the pure and final destruction of the Land.
That's just an intuition...I don't know how or why it is so or how/why it will matter/work. But I think it anyway.

[peter]

But surely 'the real TC' would never have spurned Linden's need to be held, to be loved, at this most desperate stage in her unravelling. It was the real TC's often unexpected capacity for kindness and empathy that made him an acceptable charachter even in the face of his most heinous crimes. He was the 'paradox' not least for this reason - we should have hated him but we didn't. This TC would never have rejected Lindens need - at least not for the reasons given above and it makes me believe we are missing something.

[wayfriend]

And see...I had gathered that TC had spent so much time as the Arch of Time that when reanimated, (unscrambling all that he knew as the Arch and trying to put it into his human brain) that he had gone on auto-pilot and simply reverted to his training as a leper.

I agree with that, largely. I think he reasoned as I have said about why he wanted to remain distant from Linden. But I also think that, in the execution of that conviction, he reverted into his classic leper mode without thinking about it. Then when he realized this, he tried to backfill with an explanation. Of course, the other irony is that Linden had been so harmed by these kinds of reactions, from Jeremiah and Fake Covenant, that he struck such a nerve in her.

[Vraith]

But surely 'the real TC' would never have spurned Linden's need to be held, to be loved, at this most desperate stage in her unravelling. It was the real TC's often unexpected capacity for kindness and empathy that made him an acceptable charachter even in the face of his most heinous crimes. He was the 'paradox' not least for this reason - we should have hated him but we didn't. This TC would never have rejected Lindens need - at least not for the reasons given above and it makes me believe we are missing something.

But...would it have been a comfort?
Obviously, the phrase/attitude touched a nerve [nice understatment, WF], did harm...but TC ALWAYS makes those kinds of slips. That's an aside...
Would it have been a comfort?
TC, in his present physical form, reeks of uncontrolled disease...is damaged beyond repair...I think his mind is still fractured at this point? don't have my books here...he's broken, and less, and lost, and decaying.
Linden may THINK a hug will help her, but his condition can really only bring her disgust and self-blame, especially because of HER condition/state.

[peter]

Yes - the point of what the effect of close physical contat would be on Linden given her scarified senses and acute health-sense has to be considered. She would most probably get first hand experience of the fact that the TC she had resurected was not (yet at least) the TC who could bring her any comfort. This I think makes sense and brings us a little closer to an understanding of what we may or may not expect from him during The Last Dark. I may be wrong (God knows I have been so many times) but this time I don't see a final showdown with Foul at all. I think the book will turn in the direction all of us are least ready for - whatever that is.

[wayfriend]

Doesn't anyone else see in Covenant's rejection of Linden that he intends to spend himself extravagantly, and soon, for the sake of the Land? I’m afraid of what I’m becoming. Or what I might have to be. If this story is indeed about integration, we know who Covenant will have to be. And, knowing what he did for Joan, can you imagine what he might to do himself? His hands were only foreshadowing. Whatever he's got in mind, he cannot afford to be in love, nor would he want anyone to love him. It will probably be hard enough without that.

Cail attended him like an avatar of the night's stillness. Because he had passed the limit of what he could endure, he turned to the Haruchai and whispered hoarsely, "I'm going to sleep here. I want to be alone. Don't let any of them near me."

He did not sleep. He spent the night staring up at the city as though it were the last barrier between his hot grief and Lord Foul's triumph. Several times, he heard his friends approach him through the brush. Each time, Cail turned them away. Linden protested his refusal, but could not breach it.

That solitary and intimate fidelity enabled Covenant to hang on until dawn.

Covenant is hanging on.

[peter]

There is a problem here Wayfriend. TC and Linden *already* love each other. They are both driven by their love for each other which they have already consumated and so nothing can be gained by TC's holding of Linden away for this reason. On the contrary (and I believe you are right - TC *is* going to spend himself extravagently) TC's limited future is the very reason he *should* be pulling Linden close, and yet he is not. Thus I believe that Vraiths idea that the closeness Linden thinks she could achieve by physical contact with TC would not be realised is nearer to the mark.
In the WGW TC intended to surrender his ring to Foul - he was consumed with shame and the fear that his intent would be discovered. This time his situation is fundamentally different. He knows it is the end for him and probably for Foul as well if not the whole World. I don't think he's 'hanging on' or at least not in the same way in this case - I think he's heading for the self-immoliation we both forsee with a much clearer purpous than before.