TLD Part I Chap 1: Betimes Some Wonder

[lurch]

The Last Dark

Part One "to bear what must be borne"

Chapter 1 Betimes Some Wonder

..Here we are; quite the arc of Time to have made it to this " finale" of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant! ..1977..Just to get to the first sentence of this dissect one has to make it thru the Title, Part ,and Chapter headings; a trip thru time in the group's own rite. There is constant connectivity of the past to the current and even to the future in just the cascade of , The Last, to bear, Betimes. The author had my head spinning in a caesure before I got to the wonderful opening line: " Linden Avery's fate may indeed have been written in water".I've already gone off on the metaphor of water, here.(see " Water" thread) Linden has a need to change and the author is some what coy in his, may have been. Actually he is connecting the past to the current and to the future, with just that present perfect progressive participle (?)" may have been". Its a perspective thing, not only on what is being said, but from what point in time.. We are not at the same Time when AATE ended. TLD starts before AATE ended..???, yes, Betimes. So, readers, we, actually know a bit more than Linden knows.hhhmm, Compare that to the forward knowledge of the elitists Elohim. The author likes us. He gives us that knowledge. He wants us to bond with it.

The Story Teller, Narrator ,kind of gets intimate with the reader with this, " may have been " and " indeed". While he seems to be strongly suggesting the metaphor of water, the "may have", has a back door escape of its opposite, " may not have" ." Indeed" is the author , humor in cheek, suggesting ,the Story Teller, narrator , isn't the same as the author .Apparently the Story Teller has a bit of an ego..lmao..a first of many small jokes?? and intimacies?
And before I go any further, there may be..or may be not..a Shakespearean allude like I've found in the other books of the LC's. I've already posted on the " Betimes" used in the chapter title and the Betimes MacBeth variety of tomato ,
elsewhere.( see "Out, damn Donaldson, Out!" thread)I'm convinced of it well enough for an " Indeed". Can I get a 2nd?

So, off we go to the redefining of Linden's life. The "magnificent" in the surreal sense, we are quickly reminded of: amongst the skeletons of the long dead quellviks, Linden's newly reciprocated Love, stops Time and vacates Space as she realizes new dimensions of Joy, Happiness, and Gratitude to the point of being Exalted , to the point of being beyond defining.,,Jesus'es Love? As Frank Zappa put it,," What a Pumpkin!"..?

And there is the still stoic Stave, trying to get it, but not quite, " Will You Not Harken To Me? " Pathos anybody?,,,and in-between Exaltation and pathos the author drops The Surreal Bomb.." If she withdrew from exaltation, she would be forced to think-- And every thought led to fear and contradictions; to dilemmas for which she was unprepared"..mmwwaaahahahaa,,MMMWWWAAHAHAHAHAAA,,kaff..gik, that was me, not the author..Anyway, The importance of her emotions , her feelings , surpasses the importance her logic and reasoning. Thematically, this plays all the way thru The Last Dark. Stave, the stoic one, by her side , nudging Linden , reminding her that the clock is still ticking, repeats often enough as well ,but his reward has been getting the crap beat out of him for that.

Jeremiah having come back from the graveyard is perceived new also; "more than physically well, entirely whole, mentally and spiritually intact."
The author italicized the word " whole", giving the word emphasis or a specialness from the other words. This resonates with me within the context of the Surreal . The originators of Surrealism bottom line goal was and remains,,for each individual to be " whole" rather than divided or conflicted by the very way we are taught to think and perceive. We are reminded that this " anew" is just the first step for Jerry, the question, and not the answer. He too is to be subject to further new defining. Yet Linden has fears for him, based on her own experiences; another " motif" woven thru out the book.

Stave, even shows a bit of redefining with his 2nd plea to Linden . He actually acknowledges her feelings at the moment and relates them to his feelings on losing his son ; not so stoic there. More on that as it only gets better as we go. But Jeremiah hugging Stave..and the raised eye brow afterward..funny? I thought so. Mr Spock any body? Stave boldly going? This leads to a rather perplexing dialogue. Jerry tells his Mom,,that he never wanted her to get shot, but he was glad too. " I needed you so bad. I was worse than dead"..So this is the thought pattern of the new, redefined, the " whole" Jeremiah?..Yes, yes it is. At first, getting shot and being glad,,comes off as all wrong. While the dialogue reflects the awkward immaturity of the boy, the self centered perspective of most teenagers, but a certain,,detachment of reason, from his thoughts, yes, the horrible and the good mixed together In his mind, instead of opposing, instead of being in opposite corners of a boxing ring..Being mixed together,thats Surreal. (btw, thats how conflicted our language can be. Its not even a boxing ring ..its a square)There is a connection between Mom taking a bullet and Mom rescuing him from a fate worst than death. There is a grasp of her sacrifice paying for the Wonder she feels now.. Again, a seed that flowers later. So much of this first chapter is planting seeds; tomato seeds maybe. Ya gotta plant before they sprout and flower,bearing what must be borne,betimes the Wonder. An excellent State of Mind is achieved ,with Jerry shrugging " Quellvisks. They were good for something after all. " ..a new perspective.

From Jerry's quip and Stave's urging, Linden is reminded of the Worm and thus responsibilities, her Staff and the need for all conceivable resources in order to deal with what is to come; inclusive rather than exclusive. Which,,after the Exaltation, beyond being joyful,she is insulted by the wrongness of Kevins Dirt. The far stretch of her health sense mirrors her earlier Exaltation.Same nerves, feelings, exaggeration, just a different message; the Surreal "magnificence" defined. Beauty. Burpee's stock just went up a point.

Another tip of the pen to the Surreal,," Sure Mom. I've been listening to you my whole life. I could probably hear you if you whispered half a mile away".A slightly snarky response by Jerry turns into Time and Space warped to bring Linden to a stunning realization that Lord Foul was full of schist. Her unreciprocated Love Did have Some Good Value. Perhaps thru-out the book the author aims to redefine Love as well. Another Tomato seed in the ground.
We get more "magnificence" in the dialogue between Jerry and Linden as the Ranyhyn trot along. The Truth of the croyel; how upside down inside out is that? Truth from a blood sucking leech? Something " good" from something so " bad" has a lot to do with the ears that hear or, a lot to do with ones perspective as Linden is continually stunned by deeper implications and understandings of Jerry's revelations. Thomas Does Care.".He saw in Linden what Linden still didn't see"; another intimate forward knowledge..wait a minute..omg..another little joke?.

The author comes right to the surface with his brand of the Surreal..Jerry's dialogue on how Thomas explained the importance of the Elohim: " They 're like a metaphor? A symbol? They represent the stars. Or maybe they are the stars. Or maybe the stars and the Elohim are like shadows of each other. The shadows of the Creator's children. " then the classic, " He wanted me to get it, but it didn't make much sense"OMG, I can relate!..talk about a bonding..But yea,there is humor in that. Trust me, may someday all of you realize the humor in that passage. And then,,yes, another OMG,, OMG!!,,not only does the author have Linden not understanding Metaphor, but has her proceed to set up a metaphor that just warps ..well ..just..everything. .." but I almost panicked when I saw Revelstone and Mount Thunder in the living room. I came close to taking you and running" " Then neither of us would have been shot.".." And we wouldn't be here to fight for the Land." Jeremiah put in at once. ..I don't care who you are, thats funny!.Thats Alice in Wonderland.Thats Groucho and his lion in the pajamas joke.; true but hilarious at the same time.The author could have had Jerry say.."Then there would be no story to tell in the books.." for the same guffaw. . I mean self referential and all perspective,,geesh,,, there would have been no Last Chronicles ..no Linden and Jeremiah dialogue at the end of the first chapter of The Last Dark.No dissection of..wait a minute. She conceded his point..??? Its a surreal joke!.. Point? Theres no logical Point here. Its fantasy and not just fantasy but magical realism fantasy, its Surreal. Point? LMAO! The Joke Is The Point! The Point is the Joke! Laugh it up!. Its all about how you feel. This brings us to..Legos as language; how surreal, other realities, choices not even conceived of, can the author get?( ..whats weird is that to this day, there is this fascination of what folks can and do build with Legos. Its a real phenomena) My kind of fertilizer for all these seeds..Insert your own fertilizer remark here..fish..

From that sly humor we are led thru Linden's despair of losing the Love between her and Thomas. Again a certain amount of intimacy is given to us, by what we know and Linden doesn't know. Another seed?. Thru that, we see how Love is spherical, a realm of existence and how any can be pulled out of that sphere by just the Way we think and perceive. We are given an intimate insight into the roots of Linden's despair. "She did not know how to make peace with her self..",,Being " whole" the Surrealists believe, brings peace to a individual; less conflicted and all that. So Linden still has the inability to be ..whole .She is still conflicted, divided. While she hasn't kicked the habits of the Way she thinks and perceives, she hasn't gained alternatives yet, is the important. Well, she still doesn't understand Metaphor either. Tomato seed here.

And speaking of metaphor, who, Me ?,there is the whole dialogue of castles, as a grand metaphor on creativity. I was glad that the Viles' Castle in the Lost Deep,,was the inspiration; inevitable. Just as Jerry first tried out with the Tinker Toy castle, this chapter floats examples of metaphor. Beauty. And the chapter ends on a sun setting, which we kno will be the last of it for a while,into the Dark ,the unknown,with Lord Fouls knowledge pushing her to what must be borne. ..In the classic inside out up side down Land,,its amazing how all these " seeds" sprout and grow in the dark.Exploring the Unknown for some wonder. Exploring the Unknown, so there isn't Desecration.

So, fear still erodes Linden's ability to Love. You can't be those two at the same time. ..okay? The instinctual Ranyhyn fluidly ( water allude) race off to meet up with the rest of the gang. The help is to begin in earnest.

Okay, this first chapter just slams me. There is so much going on its not easy to keep it all together. But there is a way. Obviously Surrealism keeps it fascinating,challenging, and together, for me, at the same time.The progression of the chapter is The Surreal; from grand heights of exaltation, to down to earth realities viewed never again the same way. Even in the horrible ,Linden finds a Love…new perspective.

The author does Not introduce any archaic words except in the chapter title, " Betimes"; fascinating ,yet the author announces new defining of what and who these characters are and hints of will be,and also announces,a redefining of How he is telling the story. The Surreal, the message is in the Metaphor, is at the surface of the tale, beginning right here and now in Chapter One. He is doing it His Way. Its the Last. Its Now or never.( season 6 of Lost anybody?) He continues to warp Time and reshape Space with abandon all the while reaching inside of us and finding our intestines readying himself for the gut pull. It is all about US, the reader.He wants Us to bond with these characters and their tale and provides intimacies and humor to facilitate. He has shown us the manner and the venue he is to use in getting us in touch with ourselves. The seeds are planted to bear what must be borne.

As an opening chapter I believe it to be a grand one , befitting the finale of the The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Full of other realities ready to be explored,including a narrator who is separate from the author or so it thinks,this chapter hints at perspectives anew and thoughts not even germinated yet. It takes us into " beyond defining" right from the start and races to get caught up with the rest of the Land. The author has set the bar high and invites us in on his challenge..

[Cord Hurn]

The Story Teller, Narrator ,kind of gets intimate with the reader with this, " may have been " and " indeed". While he seems to be strongly suggesting the metaphor of water, the "may have", has a back door escape of its opposite, " may not have" ." Indeed" is the author , humor in cheek, suggesting ,the Story Teller, narrator , isn't the same as the author .Apparently the Story Teller has a bit of an ego..lmao..a first of many small jokes?? and intimacies?
And before I go any further, there may be..or may be not..a Shakespearean allude like I've found in the other books of the LC's. I've already posted on the " Betimes" used in the chapter title and the Betimes MacBeth variety of tomato ,
elsewhere.( see "Out, damn Donaldson, Out!" thread)I'm convinced of it well enough for an " Indeed". Can I get a 2nd?

Considering SRD earned an M.A. in English, he has no doubt been familiarized with Shakespeare on numerous occasions. And his short story "By Any Other Name" takes its title from a line in Romeo and Juliet. I'm not familiar enough with MacBeth to give you an "Indeed", but am willing to meet you halfway with a "Mayhap".

Stave, even shows a bit of redefining with his 2nd plea to Linden . He actually acknowledges her feelings at the moment and relates them to his feelings on losing his son; not so stoic there.

Stave is not so stoic as usual, certainly, but choosing to include a very emotional reminder to add weight to an already convincing argument.

"Chosen," Stave repeated more sharply. "Linden Avery. I comprehend the force of your son's awakening, and of your reunion with him. Who will do so, if I do not? I, who have lost a son, and may only yearn bootlessly for his return to life? Nevertheless we cannot remain here.
"It appears that the Falls have ceased. Yet should the Unbeliever fail in his quest, they will surely return. And the sider perils of the world will not await the culmination of your release from sorrow. The last crisis of the Earth gathers against us. Also the Ranyhyn are restive. I deem that they are eager to rejoin our companions, and that they discern a need for haste."

He had me at, "...the Ranyhyn are restive".

Stave continues his personal journey he's been embarked on ever since the Ranyhyn led him to the horserite, and that journey makes him hands-down my favorite Last Chronicles character.

Linden was too full of other emotions to be surprised when Jeremiah reached out and hugged the Haruchai.
Although Stave did not respons, he suffered the boy's clasp until Jeremiah let him go. But when Jeremiah stepped back, the former Master lifted his eyebrow as if he were mildly perplexed.
"You are much altered," he remarked. "Is your condition such that you are able to remember Galt, who kept the fangs of the croyel from your neck?"
Jeremiah nodded. "I remember. He's your son. He let himself be killed so Anele could get that monster off my back. So Anele could give me all this power."
--the Hope of the Land.
Linden watched the boy with a kind of awe. Some part of him must have remained conscious throughout the long years of his dissociation. Other aspects must have been evoked or informed by the croyel's use of him. Otherwise he would not have been able to emerge so swiftly--or to know so much.
"Then," Stave said flatly, "I am content that you are indeed restored."

He gets right to the point of the matter as usual, and keeps Linden on track (as usual). The indispensable sidekick, who keeps coming up with another impressive facet to his personality as the pages of the LC have been turned.

This brings us to..Legos as language; how surreal, other realities, choices not even conceived of, can the author get?( ..whats weird is that to this day, there is this fascination of what folks can and do build with Legos. Its a real phenomena)

It's true. I have been to botanical gardens and art musuems where there are constructs as large and larger than people made of Legos, such as a large hummingbird pollinating a large flower head, that sort of thing.

And the chapter ends on a sun setting, which we kno will be the last of it for a while,into the Dark ,the unknown,with Lord Fouls knowledge pushing her to what must be borne.

I felt a foreboding reading that, too. knowing from the last AATE chapter what LA and Stave and Jer do not realize, that the sun's not coming back.

An excellent State of Mind is achieved ,with Jerry shrugging " Quellvisks. They were good for something after all. " ..a new perspective.

Indeed! (There's your Indeed!) The chapter itself indicates that it's further encouraging proof that Fangthane fails to anticipate events time and again.

[lurch]

aah, Stave.,relegated to the side kick literally and figuratively. I'm not sure he ever escapes the Severity of the Oath.. He takes great strides but still..

And that is another manifestation of something so fascinating..The Scale of Things...This chapter is measuring Time from the quellviks to the current,,vast, perhaps just as vast as Stave's walk away from the Oath as the Master's would have it,,vast as the height of Linden's exaltation to her depressing disappointment at realizing Kevin's Dirt was on its way, vast as the distance between a graveyard and being " whole", vast as the distance between , " don't touch me" and realizing Thomas cared...etc..The contrasts and the vast between the polar opposites, makes Truth of the Croyel possible,,makes being glad that your Mom got shot a decent possibility, makes a hope that a leper still could love you seem well within reality. Perhaps, " scale" is too small of a descriptive parameter.

[Cord Hurn]

aah, Stave.,relegated to the side kick literally and figuratively. I'm not sure he ever escapes the Severity of the Oath.. He takes great strides but still...

Well, he gives so much of himself for Linden's safety and the success of Linden's intentions, that nobody could justifiably accuse him of holding back on his service, for sure. His station would seem to have rewards and costs that are difficult to quantify, much less qualify. If you know what I mean.

And that is another manifestation of something so fascinating..The Scale of Things...This chapter is measuring Time from the quellviks to the current,,vast, perhaps just as vast as Stave's walk away from the Oath as the Master's would have it,,vast as the height of Linden's exaltation to her depressing disappointment at realizing Kevin's Dirt was on its way, vast as the distance between a graveyard and being " whole", vast as the distance between , " don't touch me" and realizing Thomas cared...etc..The contrasts and the vast between the polar opposites, makes Truth of the Croyel possible,,makes being glad that your Mom got shot a decent possibility, makes a hope that a leper still could love you seem well within reality. Perhaps, " scale" is too small of a descriptive parameter.

The "breadth of things", is perhaps better?

[lurch]

Yea, yet the breadth of things seems still too restrictive for me. The "wonder "of Betimes Some Wonder, the author means to set at infinite..beyond defining. By example, the author is suggesting where possibilities come from, so instead of the smug pretense, just set ones brain on .." infinity". Right from chapter one the author is challenging us to open our brains up to the idea of new ways of seeing and thinking, leading to choices we haven't even begun to imagine.

[lurch]

..The problem with the haruchai is..they are like, the product of their environment. Unfortunately their original envionment is very black white with hardly any grey. Cold craggy difficult mountains doesn't allow for very much latitude. Mistakes or experimentation there isn't much room for. The harsh environment is one of right or wrong and when you are wrong you probably don't live to tell about it . Very little grey. ..From such a harsh environment the haruchai simply can't break loose from the environmently imposed habits of survival.

Its not hard to qualify or quantify,,because the haruchai do not qualify or quantify their mental state. They don't even question it, the severity of it. Their mental state is so severe,,,how severe is it Johnny? ..its so severe that two haruchai can only conclude on a suicide pact to get rid of raver..Sure sounds like a suicide bomber in the middle east to me...

I think,,the metaphor or parable of Stave making himself a " lever" to force free the slab of malachite holding Jerry's much needed keystone,,says it all about the haruchai..Like " logic",,in being black/white, true / false,,with little or no caring or feeling outwardly displayed, used as a " tool" would be a good use. But to say they are a part of ,",humanity"..fails,,just like,,when the haruchai first saw the wonder Revelstone and the Land,,the best the haruchai could imagine...was to make a Oath to be the Guardians of such wonder, instead of attempting to learn the arts and craft that made such wonder. Literally, they are incapable.

The haruchai are a metaphor for logic and reason. Great tools if you are going to Mars..or build a Skyscraper, or look at an electron,,but if you are building a human being,,not so much. We are brought to conflict , divided, by a over reliance on logic and reason, because We are so much more than true false Truth tables.

[Dondarion]

Awesome start to the last leg, Lurch!   Your reviews are always so thought provoking, which is why I love SRD in the first place.  While I don't profess to follow all the surreal intonations in TCofTC, I can  certainly appreciate that they are there, and they surely have their intended effect of sharpening my awareness of the book's many hidden and alternative meanings, and I think much of the foundation for that is certainly set up in this first chapter....think Lurch's references to being "whole", for instance.  

I was so excited to start this book, and yet it is bittersweet indeed.  I was there when SRD cut his teeth on a young author from Haven Farms.   I couldn't wait to see the chapter titles alone.   And for the most part, they do not disappoint.   Part One, "To bear what must be borne".  Wow!  It's a necessity we all have to face in life, and yet it takes years to learn and  accept that fact.  SRD himself  wasn't sure about writing TLCs.  He waited a long time (timewarden?), he matured in his way, and is a different writer now than at the beginning of the series.  Life experiences must have influenced him, I'm sure.  We realize in TLCs that what matters is choosing to do something, to act,  to care, to love.  It's not easy, who ever said it was supposed to be?   But the choice matters, and so whatever comes from it must be "born", for when we make that choice, "betimes some wonder".  

And right off the bat we get pure "wonder".   Jerry's rebirth,  "born" again.  Linden is filled with the kind of joy only a parent can know.   For the first time in her son's life, he can respond!  And he tells his mom how much she did for him, and how much it meant to him.  Good lad!  Lurch makes a great observation that she made the ultimate sacrifice (they both did) of taking a bullet to realize the possibility of this moment.  I say 'possibility' because there was still no guarantee, she still had to strive to find him, to 'bear' the weight of the guilt of wondering if she should risk everything in making the effort, if summoning TC was just being selfish, but in the end she trusted in the love she had for her son, and then,  "betimes some wonder".

But, Jerry is not "whole", not yet.  He must still face the psychological trauma that he must have gone through all those years ago.  Linden knows this, it must be "borne".  Jerry must learn to bear it, and therefore so must Linden (and everybody else who has to put up with all his teenage mood swings).  But as he does, "wonders" will  present themselves in ways that cannot be guessed at now, even by LF.

And we learn about Jerry's experiences while he was in his graveyards, and the burdens he "bore".   How LF marked him in the bonfire, How he "acquiesced to the Croyle",  how he oftentimes came or was summoned to the Land, and was in commune with Insequent, and  Elohim, and the real TC!   And then the "wonder" of how TC  "spent years of Jerremiah's  childhood telling him that his mother was wonderful...and about the Elohim".  Now we know why.  

And of course the Worm is now fully awake, and Stave reminds her that this  must be "borne" right away.  I agree with Lurch that the Haruchai are what they are, Spock-like, albeit they can surprise you (at least in the case of Stave).   But they are symbolic of a side of our own nature we must sometimes express, and sometimes hold back.  I like when an author uses selected characters to exemplify a specific human trait (i.e., as distinguished from a character with a much more complex nature,  like TC).    The Ranynyn, for instance, are like our conscience, our intuition.  When we follow it, we are usually okay.  When we don't, bad things happen.

And so, there will be much to be "borne";  danger, pain, loss, separation, sacrifice, anguish, and more.  But unexpected boons or "wonders" await.  You don't look for it or expect it.  You just make a choice based on what's right in front of you.  LF doesn't have it all figured out.  He just expects that the company will despair, quit, give in to other impure influences, whatever.  But if your heart is in the right place, and you realize you can't do it alone, then even if it doesn't all turn out nice and neat, the way you drew it up, it might actually turn out better.  For me, I totally accept SRD's choice, imho, to make the focus in TLD on acceptance, trust,  sacrifice, and an overall  humanistic approach to working through  and resolving the many conflicts the characters face. There's much to be learned about ourselves in these pages, so let's pay attention as we read along!

[deer of the dawn]

An effusive and ebullient dissection, lurch, and a pleasure to read!

If "scale" does not suffice, how about "the Arch of Time"? I've read about that somewhere..

One feature that runs throughout the whole series is tension. No one ever experiences a moment of wonder without someone hanging around going "Come on, guys, we gotta go." Linden has become by now a master at ignoring the warnings and indulging her freakout until just the right amount of tension has built up. By then you're so glad they are moving that your heart is bursting with each stride of the Ranyhyn.

The chapter concludes by outlining two of the tensions that will play out throughout the rest of the book: the possibility that Jeremiah has been maimed by cruelty, and the possibility for Linden herself to commit desecration.

Also a comment about the "intimacy" with which the Narrator speaks. (I love how intimate we become with Covenant, whose hard shell has been shattered. "Of course it has.") No one here has anything left to lose, except the Earth-- including the Narrator. We are past that. There is nothing left to prove. The Narrator is a dying man breathing his last instructions. The world is about to die and hope to God be renewed. The facade is down and we are breathlessly leaning in to hear the hoarse whisper. Perfect tone for the last of the last.

[lurch]

DD, Yes, the relationship of Linden/ Stave is one of opposites, each tugging on the other. An interesting aspect of that is what each does when without the other. Linden is highly successful in her Forbidding Adventure, yet Stave, successful in breaking the slab of malachite free, hurts himself to the point of being out of commission .

Interesting take on the narrator . I picked up on the" validation" tone of the narrator. In the narrators attempt to show worthiness, a validated existence, it sometimes gets it wrong or exaggerates. Fascinating consequences of having a split plot line, it allows the narrator to get confused and mistaken , demonstrating its subjectivity as well. There seems a subtle humor at play with the narrator,,since the author is no spring chicken either.

[Frostheart Grueburn]

I'll be joining the discussions shortly, but have to finish my listening of Der Ring des Nibelungen first. Seriously recommending it to other dissectors as well, helps gain substantial insight into the structure of the Chrons.

[lurch]

structure of the Chrons???..whaa...its the olde Boy meets leprosy, boy and leprosy fall in love, boy forgets the steak bones for the kresh , boy and leprosy fall out of love, boy tries a little ur-vile action, boy misses leprosy very much, boy climbs the highest mountain to proclaim his love for leprosy, they become one, and live happily,,well , relatively happy,,,as happy as you'd expect anyway, ever after...taa daa!

[Frostheart Grueburn]

boy tries a little ur-vile action

Is this in the ultra-limited naughty Extended Omnibus Edition about which I keep hearing rumors?

[lurch]

serial numbered and autographed by Richard Wagner , bound in soft leather with gold pipping?..Never heard of it.

Anyway..My mind has created an idea...The idea is...metaphor becoming aware of itself. .. i think therefore I metaphor...The metaphor looked into a mirror and saw something else. I'm getting this " sense" or vibe , in the coming of age of Jerry. That exchange between Linden and him ending in, " then we wouldn't be fighting for the Land.." that I yik yak about in the dissect..is so self evident. As funny as it is, there is something more to it than a , well DAH!!..Its a character in a book saying ,," I'm a character in a book."..Jerry acknowledges the story he is in.Its a very subtle intimacy...Its not the author inviting the reader in, its the character stepping out looking back in along with us. Kinda Alice in Wonderland.He is already liberated by the author, not in Time but in Space, of course...

The author continues the " motif" thru -out. In most chapters, theres a quip or observation referring to the self evident, self awareness of a character to the story..Its like..the story could end at that moment,,if the character decided the other way. If Linden had scooped up Jerry and ran for the hills,,,well yea,,there would be no story, or anything close to what we have been given. Some times its the narrator doing this . Sometimes its in the dialogue. DD makes reference to tension. This " awareness" play by the author creates a tension in the absurd. DD makes a point about the narrator being an old man. Its like,," see, I could end this story any time I want,,so pay attention to me and what I'm saying,,, "

There are examples,,one, I hope Savor doesn't kill me for this,,,but an early example is when..well, what else, Linden takes a bath..the line is something like, , taking a bath couldn't cleanse Linden of her deepest troubles tho... Sooo..if a bath Could cleanse Linden of her deepest troubles,,,then it would be an entirely different and possibly short story with my rubber duckie possibly enjoying a lead role.,, Again, Its very Alice in Wonderland and is something to look for thru out the book. ... " I've seen a cat without a grin, but I've never seen a grin without a cat! " -Alice.

[Cord Hurn]

And we learn about Jerry's experiences while he was in his graveyards, and the burdens he "bore". How LF marked him in the bonfire, How he "acquiesced to the Croyle", how he oftentimes came or was summoned to the Land, and was in commune with Insequent, and Elohim, and the real TC! And then the "wonder" of how TC "spent years of Jeremiah's childhood telling him that his mother was wonderful...and about the Elohim". Now we know why.

This was an enjoyable revelation, and further helps explain why Jeremiah can emerge from his dissociated state and be able to show some positive emotions. Covenant has long been working against the Despiser's hateful influence on Jeremiah, it turns out.

The Ranyhyn, for instance, are like our conscience, our intuition. When we follow it, we are usually okay. When we don't, bad things happen.

I wholeheartedly agree with this statement...naturally.

The chapter concludes by outlining two of the tensions that will play out throughout the rest of the book: the possibility that Jeremiah has been maimed by cruelty, and the possibility for Linden herself to commit desecration.

A good point. Somehow I never feared that Covenant would do anything that would wind up threatening the Arch; that there was no way he would be the danger he unintentionally was in the Second Chronicles.

One feature that runs throughout the whole series is tension. No one ever experiences a moment of wonder without someone hanging around going "Come on, guys, we gotta go." Linden has become by now a master at ignoring the warnings and indulging her freakout until just the right amount of tension has built up. By then you're so glad they are moving that your heart is bursting with each stride of the Ranyhyn.

Absolutely! From the moment that Stave spoke in this chapter, my mind was thinking, "For goodness sake, Linden, get moving! There's so much to do and so little time left!":yeehaa:

..The problem with the haruchai is..they are like, the product of their environment. Unfortunately their original envionment is very black white with hardly any grey. Cold craggy difficult mountains doesn't allow for very much latitude. Mistakes or experimentation there isn't much room for. The harsh environment is one of right or wrong and when you are wrong you probably don't live to tell about it . Very little grey. ..From such a harsh environment the haruchai simply can't break loose from the environmently imposed habits of survival.

Its not hard to qualify or quantify,,because the haruchai do not qualify or quantify their mental state. They don't even question it, the severity of it. Their mental state is so severe,,,how severe is it Johnny? ..its so severe that two haruchai can only conclude on a suicide pact to get rid of raver..Sure sounds like a suicide bomber in the middle east to me...

I think,,the metaphor or parable of Stave making himself a " lever" to force free the slab of malachite holding Jerry's much needed keystone,,says it all about the haruchai..Like " logic",,in being black/white, true / false,,with little or no caring or feeling outwardly displayed, used as a " tool" would be a good use. But to say they are a part of ,",humanity"..fails,,just like,,when the haruchai first saw the wonder Revelstone and the Land,,the best the haruchai could imagine...was to make a Oath to be the Guardians of such wonder, instead of attempting to learn the arts and craft that made such wonder. Literally, they are incapable.

The haruchai are a metaphor for logic and reason. Great tools if you are going to Mars..or build a Skyscraper, or look at an electron,,but if you are building a human being,,not so much. We are brought to conflict , divided, by a over reliance on logic and reason, because We are so much more than true false Truth tables.

Very insightful post, lurch. It explains how they could fall into the trap of becoming Masters, and unwittingly do Fangthane's work for him by denying the lore of Earthpower to the people of the Land, because they see things in the matter of enabling or disabling the possibility of Desecration--nothing more. Binary thinking.

I'll be joining the discussions shortly, but have to finish my listening of Der Ring des Nibelungen first. Seriously recommending it to other dissectors as well, helps gain substantial insight into the structure of the Chrons.

Interesting to know it's influenced the Chronicles. I have wondered if Donaldson's Gap Cycle books were inspired by Wagner's Ring stories that were themselves inspired by mythology, down to the final book being titled This Day All Gods Die. I'm saving my reading of them until later in the year, so don't wish to spoil anything by reading ahead to verify this. Anyway, allowing that all that is the case, Der Ring des Nibelungen has been more influential in Donaldson's writing than I've ever considered (ELEVEN BOOKS!).

Anyway..My mind has created an idea...The idea is...metaphor becoming aware of itself. .. i think therefore I metaphor...The metaphor looked into a mirror and saw something else. I'm getting this " sense" or vibe , in the coming of age of Jerry. That exchange between Linden and him ending in, " then we wouldn't be fighting for the Land.." that I yik yak about in the dissect..is so self evident. As funny as it is, there is something more to it than a , well DAH!!..Its a character in a book saying ,," I'm a character in a book."

This character awareness reminded me of a passage from Tolkein's The Two Towers, in the chapter "The Stairs of Cirith Ungol", spoken by Sam Gamgee.

"And we shouldn't be here at all, if we'd known more about it before we started. But I suppose it's often that way. The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say. But that's not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually--their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn't. And if they had, we shouldn't know, because they'd have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on--and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end. You know, coming home, and finding things all right, though not quite the same-- like old Mr. Bilbo. But those aren't always the best tales to hear, though they may be the best tales to get landed in! I wonder what sort of a tale we've fallen into?"

I was surprised by this chapter being TLD's first, in terms of its subject matter. Considering the issue of the Land's reality to be moot after The Illearth War, I didn't think there would be a problem with having viewpoints from those born of the Land's world, and expected the first chapter of TLD to be about Pahni and Bhapa persuading the Masters in Revelstone for aid, and them coming up with a solution by the first chapter's end.

[Frostheart Grueburn]

Interesting to know it's influenced the Chronicles. I have wondered if Donaldson's Gap Cycle books were inspired by Wagner's Ring stories that were themselves inspired by mythology, down to the final book being titled This Day All Gods Die. I'm saving my reading of them until later in the year, so don't wish to spoil anything by reading ahead to verify this. Anyway, allowing that all that is the case, Der Ring des Nibelungen has been more influential in Donaldson's writing than I've ever considered (ELEVEN BOOKS!).

Well, SRD does fanboy both Wagner and Nor[dic]se mythology. To me the latter represents cultural history and identity, so as long as I have time and interest to participate in the dissections, such yammering remains unavoidable and I’m not sure I can spoiler-tag everything (Gap comparisons, yes, but spoiler-tagging the Eddas would be quite like performing the same to the Bible…;)).

Not eleven tomes but fifteen. Perhaps more influences lurking in his short stories, but I have not yet managed to peruse those much. In general terms, we’re dealing with a tangle of derivative works tracing their roots back to the Viking age; Der Ring des Nibelungen is again based on the Völsunga Saga, a popular tragedy during those times as attested by the numerous Sigurd runestones…
As an example of a non-Wagnerian source, The Last Chronicles in particular bear striking similarities to various passages in Völuspá (a section of Eddic poetry), to the point that they cannot be regarded as mere coincidences or subconscious insertions.

During this recent opera venture I may have unwittingly stumbled upon the same librettos SRD cherishes; my German has rusted down to a pitted wreck due to a simple lack of use so I unearthed some public domain materials translated by Frederick Jameson over a hundred years back and which allegedly convey the style and atmosphere of Wagner’s archaic language best into English among the various adaptations. Could scarcely believe my eyes. Had SRD journeyed back in time to impersonate Jameson, or the other way round? Omitting the themes, the plain prose down to individual quotes felt like reading deleted scenes from the Chronicles.

* * *

Now, back to the main topic. Great start to the dissections! Most deep matters have already experienced their share of discussion, so throwing in some latecomer residuum...

The passage about the Elohim serving as a metaphor, or some natural phenomenon being a projected representation of their physical selves, illustrates a chunk of the Land/Earth’s nature. I have long ago scrapped the idea that all these snoring-boring laws of physics cavorting around our own universe ought to apply to this realm as well; on the contrary, the reader plunges into a construct where mythology renders itself plausible. The Earth is actually a crust of some ilk amassed around a stupendous, snoozing serpent. A rainbow supports the sheer structure of time and sequence. Countless equivalent examples exist buried within the depths of world folklore. In the Norse one alone, the sun and the moon were either humanoid personifications of thereof or disks traversing the skies by horse-drawn carriages. For instance the jötnar embodied some other forces or elements of nature: Logi the fire, Kári the wind (not the one emerging from suspicious orifices, though).

Had the author been the type to invest more into world-building, we might now have hoarded more clues about the Land’s essence. However, obscurity casts a ponderous shadow over the matter, so unless SRD lays a colossal infodump for all the readerbase to adore, we can only rely on theories. It is intriguing to consider if the various races exhibiting some singular trait or quality could be a type of deity personifying some force of nature or abstract concept as well. So, logic in the latter area has been suggested for the Haruchai. What physical attribute of the Land could they typify? The Giants could represent both joy and Earth (rock -- sea). Forestals plant life and insert-here-a-question-mark? What befalls if one of these cornerstone species expires? The Elohim gone--no more starlight. Was the Sun an Elohim? Or a conglomeration of them embodying a single heavenly light? The reader knows it fails to rise during the ensuing Twilight of the Gods, but a kind of afterglow remains nonetheless. A portion of the representative Elohim yet playing hide-and-seek with the Worm?

This speculation leads to the issue of externalizations via a minor detour. The Earth teems with the varjominäs of our tortured anti-heroes from Foul to She Who Must Not to less potent an/protagonists and sidekicks. I even pondered as to whether the Insequent might specifically relate to Jeremiah. He reveals the following about his detached state:

“I was here--in the Land. In this world. But I was still just a mind. I was just kind of floating around. In one time or another. One place or another. I couldn’t touch anything, or talk to anybody.”

The Insequent are a definite product of the LCs, and even their name denotes “off sequence” aka not in sync with the Earth’s chronology or spatial continuum. Coincidence? A glaring red herring? Then again, as pointed above about TIW, the events of the Land have been narrated from some natives’ points of view, so it cannot be a mere “shared dream”. Foul and some ravers have manifested themselves outside the Arch of Time. It’s a real parallel dimension, alright, even if possessing a natural trait to attract such characters to the foreground that mirror those plummeting within from the outside. A very enigmatic world indeed. I’m swimming in question marks.

We will of course meet Jeremiah later as a point-of-view character, but in this chapter he yet remains an unfathomable entity. A master of constructs, brimming with Earthpower. Which reminds us of a similar union from the 2nd Chronicles: Vain, a being of pure construct, joined together with Findail, a being of undistilled Earthpower. Well, the upcoming chapters reveal what occurs.

Furthermore, the old theme of whether good can be achieved by evil means skulks behind his psyche and the bone construct. A boy the name of whom means “a harbinger of doom” and whom the Despiser himself has mauled has now rediscovered his mind within the carcasses of creatures perverted by the antics of the very same evil god. An ominous beginning, right there…

It is also interesting to note that in many world mythologies bones are associated with rebirth or the source of life's essence. Jeremiah was indeed reborn in a bone-fane.

[deer of the dawn]

Btw, Cord Hurn, that passage from TTT is one of my all-time faves from all literature, anywhere. (From long before the movie popularized it.)

[Cord Hurn]

Well, SRD does fanboy both Wagner and Nor[dic]se mythology.

I like the use of "fanboy" as a verb. It's quite hip.

As an example of a non-Wagnerian source, The Last Chronicles in particular bear striking similarities to various passages in Völuspá (a section of Eddic poetry), to the point that they cannot be regarded as mere coincidences or subconscious insertions.

I don't doubt it, and it was interesting to hear that Donaldson has resemblences to translator Jameson in terms of storytelling.

Well, SRD does fanboy both Wagner and Nor[dic]se mythology. To me the latter represents cultural history and identity, so as long as I have time and interest to participate in the dissections, such yammering remains unavoidable and I’m not sure I can spoiler-tag everything (Gap comparisons, yes, but spoiler-tagging the Eddas would be quite like performing the same to the Bible…).

Oh no, Frostheart, I was only worried about being spoilered with Gap details; sure wouldn't want you to have to feel like you have spoiler-tag the entire Eddas for me! Those are MOST influential, and if I recall correctly, Tolkein got a lot of names of dwarves from the Elder Edda. I think the influence of the Eddas and similar stories (AMAZING that there are so many thousand-year-old stones depicting scenes from the Sigurd legends) are beyond calculation, really.

And you're right, it's fifteen books, for some reason I was only counting the first 2 Chronicles along with the Gap books.

Furthermore, the old theme of whether good can be achieved by evil means skulks behind his psyche and the bone construct. A boy the name of whom means “a harbinger of doom” and whom the Despiser himself has mauled has now rediscovered his mind within the carcasses of creatures perverted by the antics of the very same evil god. An ominous beginning, right there…

Yes, and at this point in the story I was most concerned about Jeremiah's capacity for destroying the Land. It was so obvious he'd buried a lot of issues with his graveyard thoughts.

Was the Sun an Elohim? Or a conglomeration of them embodying a single heavenly light?

I think conglomeration is the answer, and that some smudged light continues because some remained alive. Very good questions and observations!

[Cord Hurn]

Btw, Cord Hurn, that passage from TTT is one of my all-time faves from all literature, anywhere. (From long before the movie popularized it.)

It was hard not to quote the entire two-and-a-half-page conversation Sam and Frodo had about being in a story, deer of the dawn, because it was just so much fun going back to reread it! But I decided quoting all that would just be too distracting to the subject at hand.

[wayfriend]

Well, I've finally gotten started on this dissection. Late to the party, as I often am. I'm not going to try and pretend I was here all along, but I do want to add some things.

Thanks for starting us off, lurch. It's aways good to get reconnected to what was, what is, and what will be when you begin a new journey. You fulfilled.

---------- ----------

I don't know about anything else, but there was a burning question on my mind when I read this chapter the first time:

What is Jeremiah going to be like?

Does he belong to Foul? or Linden? Is he going to be a basketcase? Will he be mentally a four year old? Will he have superpowers?

We are meeting Jeremiah for the first time.

And this chapter delivers the answers. First, through the experience of a parent seeing her son reclaimed. Then, through the expediency of Linden probing his condition before our eyes.

There are revelations. Jeremiah's mind is a vault, and things that only he could know come tumbling out. His constructions. His mental visitations. His relationship with the Timewarden. And, most importantly, his mental and emotional health.

Surprisingly, everything looks good! He seems sound and hale. He loves his mother, and recognizes her love for him. He remembers what has happened to him.

Donaldson, however, wants us to doubt our protagonists. He doesn't like us to comfortably assume the hero will win. He wants us to doubt. Suspense arises from a protagonist that "can go either way".

So the chapter ends with Linden's thought: "It was entirely impossible that he had not been maimed in some way". There may still be surprises. Lord Foul may yet have his hands in Jeremiah's will. When evil rises in its full power, it surpasses truth and may wear the guise of good without fear of discovery.

Still. the chapter is titled "Betimes some wonder". Mahrtiir said that. He was speaking about the tenacity of hope.

---------- ----------

"Exaltation."

She was the same Linden Avery who had raged and failed and despaired; yet somehow she had also been remade anew.

Donaldson promised us that "Linden Avery is also on a quest to become whole, but hers takes an entirely different form." (GI, 4/27/2004).

The first half of this chapter reads like a culmination of such a quest. Linden is "remade anew".

Joy was too small a word for her emotions. Happiness and gratitude and relief and astonishment were trivial by comparison. A staggering confluence of valor and trust had restored her son. at that moment, she believed that if the Worm came for her, or She Who Must Not Be Named, or even Lord Foul the Despiser, her only regret would be that she did not get to know who her son had become during his absence.

[...] She had no better name for what she felt than exaltation.

Linden's quest in the Land has been before our eyes the entire time: to save her son. Reading this chapter, feeling Linden's emotions, we can certainly see that the arc of her quest has come to a victorious peak. It's not something we need read in tea leaves, or solve a puzzle to see ... it's right there in the text.

But is this ... could this be ... a quest for wholeness?

I am starting to see that it is. Linden is a parent. She cannot be whole until she has seen her child rescued and come into his full strength. A parent is selfless when it comes to her child ... it is not astonishing that she would derive her sense of wholeness through the rescue not of herself but of her son.

---------- ----------

"Scars and scarification" - a pretty piece of prose. Scarification is not about scars, but scratches - that which will become scars, if you wish. So, two related but different things, presented homophonically.

---------- ----------

Jeremiah is spoken of as if he (too!) has been resurrected. "Reincarnated himself from the old bones of monsters."

She had failed to resurrect Covenant without his leprosy. Other restorations may go awry.

So there, she lays Covenant's resurrection and Jeremiah's restoration side by side, two of the same thing.

And we also know that Jeremiah has emerged from a grave.

This is an interesting parallel to consider. Linden has resurrected the two people that she loves. Brought them both back to life. Now she is with them.

Wholeness? Yes. The wholeness of a family. Have her struggles been towards obtaining this? Undeniably. If you consider Linden's own parents, it's not hard to see that she has been incomplete in the family department.

---------- ----------

It appears that the Ranyhyn are now in a hurry, and have been in a hurry, because Kevin's Dirt is on the loose in the lower Land. Perhaps it would have prevented Jeremiah's restoration ... it does limit the expression of Earthpower.

---------- ----------

Jeremiah mentions that Infelice gave him an idea. We will know, later, what that idea is. So this marks the source.

[wayfriend]

It's easy, I think, to pass over what is revealed in this chapter, because it's not revelatory any more. But I sure as heck would like to dive into the details, if only to pin down the sources of these ideas.

“Using those bones”—he gestured behind him—“was the second time I managed to make a—I don’t know what else to call it—a door for my mind. That racetrack was the first."

Jeremiah always had the power to free his mind. He had done so, in a smaller way, before Runes began, with the racetrack.

And it was he himself that brought himself to the Land. Not Foul. His visits were innocent of Foul's plotting.

But giving me those racetrack pieces was like a miracle. I don’t know how you came up with the idea, but it was perfect.

It is worth noting that Linden unwittingly handed Jeremiah the key to his escape. It is significant when you consider that Linden had similarly unwittingly handed Joan they key to creating caesures that threatened Time.

Linden told the Masters that denying people the use of Earthpower removed the chance of doing good as well as the chance of doing bad. The same philosophy applies here. By helping Jeremiah and Joan, there was a chance of doing good as well as bad. You can't eliminate one without the other. Life and death are too intimately intergrown to be severed from each other.

When I went through my door, I was here. I mean, not here. I mean in the Land. In this world. But I was still just a mind. I was just kind of floating around. In one time or another. One place or another.

So this part was as we had been told, but now we can believe it.

What is notable here is "in one time or another". Jeremiah's disembodied presence was timeloose in the Land. This is how he was able to speak with the Vizard, and a demi-mage. This is how he knew what the Quellvisks were like.

Why would this need to be so, I wonder? Why was escaping to the Land not enough? What did Jeremiah require in the past?

One thing though, and it's important. Because Jeremiah had been visiting the Land, it explains why he now wants to save it. He has seen it's beauty, and been enlightened of it's importance.

"The real Covenant talked to me more than all the rest put together. He talked like he actually cared about me.”

This is fascinating. The Timewarden and Jeremiah had a relationship all along. And let us presume that if the Vizard and other powers could see a measure of Jeremiah's capabilities, then the Timewarden could as well.

On one side, this means that it's not a surprise that Covenant, immediately upon his resurrection, supported rescuing Jeremiah. He had occult knowledge all along (albeit reduced by incarnation) of Jeremiah's importance, and possibly even his purpose. (And there are clues, which I have alluded to in earlier chapters, that as Timewarden he pushed Linden in a direction that ultimately required her bargaining with the Harrow, and thus enabling Jeremiah's release from the Lost Deep.)

On the other side, this means that Jeremiah wasn't getting his mind filled with Lord Foul's deceptions the whole time he was in the Land. The Timewarden was one of his mentors.

“He told me I could count on you. Like I didn’t know that already. If I needed you, you would do anything to help me, even if it was impossible. He said you have no idea how strong you really are. He said it makes you wonderful.”

Certainly Covenant never had anything but faith in Linden. It makes me wonder how anyone could not, with such a strong lead to follow.

But does a statement like this imply that Covenant believed that Linden would be coming to the Land before she came? Or does it only indicate faith that Linden would eventually reach and heal her damaged son?

Hope.

"Tell me, just where the hell do you get hope?"
"From faith."

Covenant had faith in Linden. From that was born his hope.

“And he talked about the Elohim. I didn’t really understand, but I think he was trying to explain why they’re important. They’re like a metaphor? A symbol? They represent the stars. Or maybe they are the stars. Or maybe the stars and the Elohim are like shadows of each other. The shadows of the Creator’s children.”

When I first read this, I was appalled at the use of the term "metaphor". It seemed a little sloppy. But upon reflection, I now see that this terminology is not Donaldson's, but Jeremiah's, reflecting his imperfect understanding in the language of our world, not the language of the Land.

Anyway ... this re-introduces us to the connection between the Elohim and the stars. Something that will be important later in the story. And something which had been foreshadowed since we first met those fickle faeries.

And, as seems likely, if the Worm is also the Würd of the Earth, and the Elohim are also the Würd of the Earth, then the Elohim are much more involved with the Arch of Time than we have seen to date. I cannot help thinking of the Elohimfest, and that the Elohim are the stars, caught in the Wounded Rainbow, devoured by the Worm, and trapped in the Arch; children of the Creator, living peoples of the heavens, and direct offspring of creation. By uniting the Worm and the Arch, we also unite the Elohim with the Creator.

“I probably shouldn’t admit this,” she offered tentatively, “but I almost panicked when I saw Revelstone and Mount Thunder in the living room. I came close to taking you and running.” She still believed that she should have done so. “Then neither of us would have been shot.”

“And we wouldn’t be here to fight for the Land,” Jeremiah put in at once.

This is really, really important.

It's more than just Jeremiah's capacity for sacrifice and service, that he was willing to be shot and killed in order to have a chance to save the Land.

It's the whole Last Chronicles in a nut-shell. Was it really a mistake for Linden to not have run when she had the chance? Do we judge this by the information she had at the time, or by the consequences that could not have been forseen?

Do people make mistakes? Or are they merely choices that they live with? Can they be bad if they lead to good? Aren't we the sum of what we choose and how we cope with the choice?

“So I wanted to warn you. Legos were the only language I had.”

And this is where Lego Revelstone and Lego Mount Thunder came from. They weren't a threat, they were a warning. They weren't in danger, they weren't containing danger. They were just special, which Jeremiah had on the word of the Timewarden. Things could happen there that might frustrate Lord Foul. So, in a way, the Lego constructions were Covenant's warning.

He flashed a grin at her. “Sure, Mom. I’ve been listening to you my whole life. I could probably hear you if you whispered half a mile away.”

The best for Last. Jeremiah had been listening to Linden his whole life.

Covenant had assured her, None of the love you lavished on your son was wasted. This wasn't an assumption. This wasn't just a hope. He knew.

Jeremiah is Linden's son.

Which, after years and years of dedication and effort and trying, Linden has just now, finally, FINALLY, discovered that it all paid off.

In spades.

Yeah. This is Linden's big moment.