wayfriend wrote:
Regarding the trinity, the emphasis on wild magic as "holy ghost" inclines me to think Donaldson is referring to Covenant as an a sort of "active agent". The instigateur of the dynamics of the trinity. The blood. In this light, I am inclined to consider "acolyte" in the sense of "attendant" or "assistant". "follower" also fits, in the sense that Covenant is capable of following either Despite or Life, save or damn. So while I don't know which Donaldson means, I think which one he means is very important to interpreting this.
I prefer Donaldson's own interpretation, found immediately after the portion you didn't quote in the same GI post:
SRD wrote:
If anything, the tradition I was drawing on was Christian (because of my background in fundamentalist Christianity, not because I am in any useful sense a believer): the Trinity, God in Three Persons. Except I obviously wasn't thinking of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. More like Creator, Destroyer, and Holy Ghost (wild magic). Or Creator, Destroyer, and--what shall we call Covenant as the protagonist of the drama?--Acolyte. But you're quite right about the "shared identity" theme. I was explicitly thinking of the Creator, the Despiser, and wild magic as aspects of Covenant himself. And the part of himself which he denies--wild magic, his own personal power to assign meaning to his life and experiences--is the part which must mediate his internal conflicts (the struggle between the creative and destructive sides of his nature). Hence the thematic development from the first to the second "Chronicles." In the first, Covenant opposes his--dare I say it?--Dark Side and wins (an expensive--and temporary--victory). In the second, he surrenders to his Dark Side, and thereby gains the power to contain it (another expensive--and temporary--victory). "The Last Chronicles" will explore this theme further as Covenant's quest to become whole continues. (Linden Avery is also on a quest to become whole, but hers takes an entirely different form.)
My general view of the kind of fantasy I write is that it's a specialized form of psychodrama. Putting the issue as simply as I can: the story is a human mind turned inside out, and all of the internal forces which drive that mind are dramatized *as if* they were external characters, places, and events. This is easier to see in the first "Chronicles" because the story is simpler: the Land and everyone in it is an external manifestation of Covenant's internal journey/struggle. Everything is more complex in "The Second Chronicles" because there are *two* minds being turned inside out. Which means that there are actually three stories at work: Covenant's, Linden's, and the interaction between the two.
<sigh> And if I wanted to say more than *that* on the subject, I would write dissertations instead of novels.
(04/27/2004)
He's pretty clear and explicit about it. It's not an instigator, but a mediator. As Donaldson says, it's his power to assign meaning to his life. This is extremely important, because for most of human history, we have allowed others to define meaning for us, whether those are authority figures, religions, dogmas, society, etc. But realizing that meaning is *your* responsibility forces you to make choices between your own Creative and Destructive sides. Hence, the mediation.
The mention of "shared identity theme" is interesting in this context, due to The Acolyte being an amalgamation of three different Insequent. When you join this with his final words (in the quote above) about this psychodrama being two minds turned inside-out, and their interaction making three stories, it gets even more interesting. Jeremiah doesn't really have his own story ... he's the nexus between Covenant and Linden. He's what brings them together in the LC, the reason Linden brings Covenant back from the dead (otherwise she may not have violated his memory or the world in this way). So The Acolyte might be another way to make this "shared identity" idea explicit in the book, at least figuratively ... especially if the Insequent function as symbols of the Creator side of each real world character, as I've suggested in another thread.
There is definitely some intentional blurring going on with the use of this word. Covenant is clearly referring to himself (and Linden, and Jerry) when he says they need teaching. But then he calls the amalgamation Insequent "the Acolyte," as if he/she needs the teaching. But really I think it's a way to point out that these are shared identities, so that we don't have to think of this as a strict teacher/student relationship, but instead a general attitude of learning (instead of just acting on instinct or emotion) within oneself, since there isn't really any external teacher here. It's all their own minds. They're teaching themselves ... or each other.
And the final emphasis on learning, specifically learning
lore, seems to contradict one of Lurch's main points about the emphasis on emotion instead of logic and reason. Lore isn't an exact parallel to those concepts, but it's certainly not emotion. Acting on emotion has saved the day many times, but it has also produced some horrific results. In the end, Covenant recognizes that he can't simply act on intuition/emotion all the time, and must become more rigorous and studious in his application of assigning meaning, especially since he has Foul within him now and intends to contain him. Lore isn't just good for launching satellites ... it's also about
how to live your life and be Human.
wayfriend wrote:
But the emphasis on the "the" is also a clue. Is she the most important acolyte, or the only acolyte, or the first acolyte? ("The One Acolyte", heh.)
I think it's emphasis on a singular acolyte rather than plural. The shared identity theme. A natural emphasis after incorporating Foul into himself.
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