It was by considering these two issues that I've arrived at an understanding of why Covenant and Linden both had "final showdowns" with symbolic beings of mythical statures. In other words, there are significant reasons why these were counterpart confrontations, as well as not merely redundant repetitions of each other. SheBane was not merely Linden's female Despiser. [Though SheWho was almost certainly Linden's counterpart to Covernant's Foul ... see the SheWho thread for my argument for that point.]
In my reread this year I've noted how Linden is given several hints that she must not attempt transcendental solutions. The most literal hint is Covenant's, "Trust yourself." Not, "trust your friends, trust Fate, trust the Creator, trust me." No, she must trust herself. [I am myself!]
The second hint is the horserite vision. In the Runes dissection I noted how the ranyhyn were trying to tell Linden that she didn't need to surpass herself--as Elena attempted. You don't need help from Absolute authority figures or from beyond the grave in order to preserve Beauty, Life, etc..
Obviously, the danger of attempting transcendental solutions was dramatically shown when Linden used Staff+ring+krill to resurrect Covenant, waking the Worm. Looking for transcendent answers to "the problem of entropy" or Wildwood's question causes us to destroy what we love (desecration), betray what we love (breaking the Law of Death), or to destroy ourselves in fury and frustration that we are not more than ourselves.In Runes, SRD wrote:"Sure," she went on, "Kelenbhrabanal's despair didn't save the Ranyhyn. I get that. But what did?
"It wasn't anything grand. It wasn't Lords or Bloodguard or white rings or Staffs. The Ranyhyn weren't preserved by Vows, or absolute faithfulness, or any other form of Haruchai mastery. That was the real warning."
"Linden Avery?" Stave sounded implacable, ready for scorn.
But she had come too far, and needed him too much, to falter now. "It was something much simpler than that. The plain, selfless devotion of ordinary men and women." The Ramen. "You said it yourself. The Ranyhyn were nearly destroyed until they found the Ramen to care for them.
The reason Linden doesn't need a transcendental solution is because SRD is trying to tell the truth about entropy, as he said. Well, the truth is that magic can't get rid of death (though death/decay can be resisted). Entropy is a real, physical thing. It's not a spiritual concept like Despite, which occurs only in the human soul or psyche. Though we can use our Love to fight against decay--the Power that Preserves--this is a battle fought (primarily) on a physical ground, not the spiritual ground of our inner landscape.
A battle against our own Despite, on the other hand, is more of a spiritual battle. While that battle can spill out into the world (if we don't control our Despite), ultimately a battle against Foul is internal.
So, perhaps this is why Linden had to face She, while Covenant had to face Foul: we have two separate issues here. It was Linden who brought back the memory of forbidding, brought back forestals, and made it possible to preserve beauty. And because Linden’s task is not transcendental, she does not join with her own metaphor, as Covenant does. Because resisting entropy doesn’t take magic, nor is it something we do in a spiritual realm (e.g. we can do it by recycling our trash or using solar energy), Linden just needed to be herself. We can have the “power to forbid” entropy by nursing our own power to preserve. Like the Worm’s approach, we can’t Forbid it entirely, but we can still alter its trajectory. While our efforts to that end are not transcendental, they are still effective.In [url=https://kevinswatch.ihugny.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=936853#936853]FR forum[/url], I wrote:“So Wildwood's question--while somewhat linked to the quesiton of how to beat Lord Foul--is a distinct and separate question. While we can defeat LF, we'll never be able to stop Truth and Beauty from utterly passing, eventually. The trick will be to not allow that fact to cause us to resurrect Foul, or to unleash our own inner Despiser upon the world in retribution for those things we cannot change.
Acceptance. Be True. I think that's the answer to Wildwood's question.”
And yet that power to forbid is also the same power that allows us to control our own inner Despiser. Just as we can say, “no” to degredation of the earth, we can also say “no” to our own hate. Both are the same power of personal will, applied in two different directions. So there’s the issue of resisting the natural decay of time (Linden’s promise to Wildwood), as well as resisting one’s own tendency to help nature along its own destructive path with your own Despite. Each required its own metaphorical showdown.
Linden's struggle is the external counterpart to TC’s inner struggle.
TC’s struggle was more “transcendental” because you can beat Foul. While struggles against death my not be an "enduring solution" (as SRD said of the problem of evil), you can achieve a lasting victory over your own inner Despiser. You can’t transcend the Worm, but you can transcend your own inner Despiser. In fact, you can subsume Him.
So, Covenant takes Foul into himself--both accepting and resisting Foul--while Linden allows She to escape Time, because entropy and death (symbolized by carrion sensation) are as eternal as Time itself. They can't be stopped. But Linden can stop being the person who betrays her own Power to Preserve by accepting herself for who she is--as her own person--rather than merely the sum of her losses, or the Mom or Lover who sacrifices Beauty/Life of the world by trying to redeem other people, rather than herself.
So both Covenant and Linden embrace themselves in ways that still resist, and by doing this they both become whole, but their forms of redemption are inverted versions of each other because they are directing their acceptance/resistance toward Evil and Entropy, respectively. Inner-directed vs outer-directed.