Skyweir:
We only assume that because our story begins with TC's march into town in an attempt to reclaim some semblance of his self .. I leant out one of my LFB's and cant find the other .. but I recall at the beginning we learn some of TC's pre-leprosy past .. and from the moment he was diagnosed with leperosy .. even the nurse in his local hospital didnt want to treat him .. or something like that .. By virtue of the very nature of his disease .. he was stigmatised and shunned .. even though his threat to anyone other than himself was relatively low to none at all ..
But how many of the townspeople knew that? Maybe the doctors and
nurses knew that ... but I'm not even all that sure they did because we
have no idea of how much training they'd ever received on leprosy.
It's easy to sit in judgment on something when you have all the facts,
but we have no way of knowing how much the townspeople knew about
Covenant's condition.
Take the truckdriver that initially befriended Covenant and then punched
him in _The Illearth War_. Did he seem like such a bad guy to you
before he expressed his belief that Covenant was going out to
deliberately create other lepers? He didn't know how leprosy works, so
he was afraid of it. Fear and ignorance make people do stupid things.
like they feared catching airborne leperosy germs or something .. irrational like that .. and their fear was irrational and unsound .. as most 'fear' is
I'm old enough to remember the intial AIDS scare. People were
terrified of it-- even doctors. I recall listening to a radio show of a
nationally syndicated doctor who admitted that once he had to deal
with cleaning up blood from an HIV-infected patient. He wore the
proper protection and waited until it was safe to make the attempt,
but he was still nervous as he did it.
There was a girl who caught AIDS and they couldn't figure out how
she got it as she wasn't a drug addict and was a virgin, and the doctors
were literally panicking over it ... (it turned out that her dentist was HIV
positive and he deliberately infected some of his patients).
Fear is hardwired into our brain, and to expect people to just "get over
it" without first giving them the proper background to explain their fear
is groundless is unfair.
He was sent the razor impregnated bun .. just because he was there ..
As I recall it, he got the razor impregnanted bun after he went into
town. Again, people were reacting out of fear.
this could also be simply because his friends were not his friends any more .. In the beginning of LFB .. TC describes himself as relatively good humoured .. reminisces when he used to be the one who would laugh over the smallest things .. He describes himself as a happy guy .. who pretty much has it all .. a good life .. a promising career .. happy to have found a woman he loved .. a sizeable piece of property .. with a nice home and a studio where he works ..
Ah, but everything was described in terms of Joan and his career. It's
as if nothing else existed for Covenant but Joan and his writing.
Kaos wrote:
Everything about Covenant screams
"city person" to me.
You could be right he certainly doesnt seem to be a small minded yokel natured kind of bloke .. he seems well educated and maybe not a little cosmopolitan ..
I come from a small town, and I've been to college, and I've talked
to people all over the world on the internet, and the conclusions I've
reached is that most people have their own little prejudices and
prejudgements. People from big cities tend to assume that if you
come from a small town you're ignorant and prejudiced and just
this side of one of the "Squeal like a pig guys" from _Deliverance._
to me this is a saving virtue .. because if he was one of the locallers .. it would be more difficult to feel as much empathy for him .. if he was tainted with the same small town mentality and prejudices .. I just dont like these townsfolk much the bunch of self-righteous condemnational hypocrites
And to me, pre-leper Covenant just comes across as being a shallow,
self-centered jerk to me.
Kaos wrote:
And once Joan left to take Roger to show him off to relatives, Covenant apparently sees no one else while she's away while
he's puttering away in his cottage writing.
well if you remember .. he is under strict instructions to stay home and write his next book .. Joan makes that trip with no intention of including TC .. he has work to do!! .. Rumpole reference here >
So you're saying the fact that he's whipped is supposed to make me
like him more?
Kaos wrote:
Let's face it, Covenant isn't the easiest person in the world to get along with. He's acrophobic, obsessed with his disease, and seems to be constantly angry or depressed.
TC is not the easiest person in the world to get along with but he has compelling reasons for his bitterness .. and his anger .. and his depression ..
Sure, but that doesn't mean you'd want to spend time with the guy.
People who constantly bemoan their fate tend to drain even the most
generous-hearted person of all their compassion.
and if anyone in his shoes .. would be hard pressed not to end up similar to TC himself ..
But people have done it, and risen above circumstances equally as
dire. Last year I read an article about a former leper colony, and they
talked about some of the former inhabitants. One of them was a young
man who went off to college and got his degree-- in the 1950s yet.
Pre-leperosy TC sounds like a good guy .. and sure I wouldnt mind hanging out with him .. Post-leperosy TC is tale of a different kind .. nevertheless even though he drove me nuts throughout most of the series .. he was someone I'd like to invest the time in to know ..
Pre-leper Covenant just strikes me as being shallow and self-involved,
and rather weak willed. And in the first series I could barely stand to
read it because the guy annoyed me so much.
Like Berensford, I found post-TPTP Covenant much more likable
than he was in the first series. THAT guy I might have been able
to get to know and appreciate.
the bunch of self-righteous condemnational hypocrites 
) .. and return>