Who among you can really relate to Thomas Covenant?

[wayfriend]

so...you're worried about me?

I should have kept my trap shut, huh?

Honestly, I was thinking about hypothetical people, who could not relate to Covenant because their lives have lacked any kind of isolation or hardship, or who never gave any thought to the consequences of their actions. People who don't have the raw materials, as it were, to relate to anything Donaldson speaks to.

You're a special case, luci. I'm not worried about you.

Donaldson wrote in the GI somewhere (and I can't find it now for the life of me, but I press on due to a furious need to change the topic) that there are two kinds of readers: those that find something positive in reading about pain and suffering (and so who persevere through the Chronicles) and those that don't (and so don't).

It seems like a related question. You can't identify with characters that you can't approach because their story repels you.

[Cagliostro]

i've been an outcast, or...perhaps misfit is a better word, all my life.
i've done things i've regretted. not nice things.

So it sounds like you can relate. Relating to a character in a book doesn't mean you have to have all the traits or even react the same as they do. Even in the most far out there stories that I like, I usually find something relatable, or I just simply get bored. But usually you glean moments of truth and that keeps it interesting. Then again, I'm probably talking crap as usual.

Maybe that's why I don't like Mafia movies...

[aliantha]

*I* don't like Mafia movies because horse's heads end up in people's beds. But that's beside the point.

Hey, should this thread be in the TC forum?

[lucimay]

(and I can't find it now for the life of me, but I press on due to a furious need to change the topic)

you crack me up!!!

i've been an outcast, or...perhaps misfit is a better word, all my life.
i've done things i've regretted. not nice things.

So it sounds like you can relate. Relating to a character in a book doesn't mean you have to have all the traits or even react the same as they do. Even in the most far out there stories that I like, I usually find something relatable, or I just simply get bored. But usually you glean moments of truth and that keeps it interesting. Then again, I'm probably talking crap as usual.

Maybe that's why I don't like Mafia movies...

i guess the term "relate" is a...er...relative term, eh?

let me try to explain further.

initially, on reading LFB, i felt sorry for covenant. i pitied him for the
terrible thing that happened to him to screw up his life so totally.
i could relate to having the rug jerked out from under you. it sucks.
so in that sense, i "related" to him at the beginning of the book.
but as i kept reading i related less and less and i kept thinking "what an
asshole!" and what i began to think of him the more i read into that first
trilogy was that he was incredibly selfish and self-centered and everything
he did to help the land and the people in it was really all about HIM, even
when he finally decided it didn't matter if the land was "real" or not.
it was still all about him.
that i simply couldn't relate to.

with linden, the guilt she carried around throught the 2nd chrons just
frankly mystified me.(not that she HAD guild but how it manifested itself
in her psyche and her actions) she did not even become a fully-realized character to me until Fatal Revenant. i couldn't relate to her because she didn't feel "real" to me. there was nothing in the first 4 books of her that i could relate to, up to and especially her attraction to covenant. (i thought she was even more pathologically neurotic than covenant)

of course there's the fact that their goofey shit got in the way of them
getting the job done time after time and THAT i can relate to.

so yeah, donaldson is a human being and some of the stuff he writes about i can relate to. foamfollower, mhoram, even the haruchai to a
degree. but covenant and linden, not so much.

foamfollower was what kept me reading through the 1st chrons.
the desire to find out what the land actually is has kept me reading
through the rest of the series.

frankly i find more relatable truths about the human condition in The Gap.

[CovenantJr]

so yeah, donaldson is a human being and some of the stuff he writes about i can relate to. foamfollower, mhoram, even the haruchai to a
degree. but covenant and linden, not so much.

foamfollower was what kept me reading through the 1st chrons.
the desire to find out what the land actually is has kept me reading
through the rest of the series.

Heh, funny how this stuff works eh? I can't relate to Foamfollower at all; Mhoram and the Haruchai a little bit, but not much. Just small elements of them. Covenant makes perfect sense; Linden makes none at all. Or rather, I can appreciate Covenant's selfishness and his attempts to reconcile it with what he knows to be right, but Linden's teeth-gnashing self-obsessed high school whinge-fest is pretty alien.

Does anyone relate to Kevin?

[wayfriend]

but Linden's teeth-gnashing self-obsessed high school whinge-fest is pretty alien.

I don't remember that part. I don't even remember a single part that comes close to being that. Maybe that's why I can relate to Linden.

[Blackhawk]

the only way i can relate to isolation and loss of friends and family would be during my first years at High School, school was new... and on top of that my Grandfather (who i was Very close with) Passed away, my parents separated... and every single one of my friends moved away to another state or far enough that it might as well have been another state, that was a really screwed up time... but I never had any incurable disease nor was I outcast from Society..though i felt i was.

This was not long after my first reads of the TCTC...and it was during this time that my wanting to live in the land was Strongest.

Great first post Flasharino...

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

I have issues with physical contact, not that I'm numb per se but when it comes to shaking hands or hugging people (for instance), right now I can't clearly remember a time when I didn't feel... empty... in relation to it.

Isolation, too. Feeling like my mind is being torn in half, that something demonic is inside of me struggling to set itself free, or convince me to release it. Feeling the opposite drive towards saving my world (i.e. my life and the lives of those around me). Walking a lot.

So, yeah.

[peter]

I'm surprised danlo hasn't been in here yet to tell about how he identified so much with Covenant that he considered cutting off his fingers. (True story. He's told it here on the Watch before.)

That is just too much - I don't believe even Donaldson would approve of that much identification; however - I agree that we all have to empathise with a books main charachter to some degree, or reading it just becomes a chore, but in the case of Covenant, he was so exasperating much of the time (an often a complete bastard to boot) that you couldn't help wanting to box his ears for him, never mind identify with him!

[Rocksister]

Not the same, I know, but TC was totally alone after Joan left with Roger and didn't get much social interaction, if any. I'm kind of like that now, as I just became a full-out empty nester and am single, so in that way I relate. Funny things happen to your mind when you don't have people in the same house with you. It's a real honest fact. I'm prime right now for a bump on the head........

[Thorhammerhand]

Like wise I can identify more with the loneliness of TC rather than any of his disfiguring qualities. However, taken in the context of my topic 'The only way to hurt a man (woman) who has nothing...' I feel that in we can find companionship, like that found in the Land

[krillarbran]

I was just so engrossed in the books for the first time reading them because of his anti-hero thoughts and actions. I was wondering everytime a new chapter came along, "Will this be the final chapter where TC decides that it is fully real and he will be nice?" (I was 13 at the time).

[jacob Raver, sinTempter]

I have issues with physical contact, not that I'm numb per se but when it comes to shaking hands or hugging people (for instance), right now I can't clearly remember a time when I didn't feel... empty... in relation to it.

Isolation, too. Feeling like my mind is being torn in half, that something demonic is inside of me struggling to set itself free, or convince me to release it. Feeling the opposite drive towards saving my world (i.e. my life and the lives of those around me). Walking a lot.

So, yeah.

We're all evil at heart...we just try to cover it up with good intentions.

[peter]

We're all evil at heart...we just try to cover it up with good intentions.

Sorry Jacob Raver, that is just wrong. We are not all 'evil at heart', in fact quite the opposit. To have dark thoughts and feelings in us is part of what it is to be human; but to restrain those feelings, to rise above them is to demostrate our essential goodness by recognition of what is destructive within us and overcoming it.

[matrixman]

Does anyone relate to Kevin?

At least once a week at work, I feel the urge to perform a Ritual of Denunciation. Does that count?

When I started LFB, I instantly identified with Covenant. Maybe the virtuoso quality of SRD's writing in those opening chapters had something to do with it. I was completely into the story. I felt Covenant's bitterness and isolation as if it were my own. Maybe my age at the time (13) also had something to do with it. I guess I came to the Chronicles when the set of circumstances in my life at the time allowed me to feel every word SRD wrote with the greatest intensity. I'm not sure these books could have seared themselves into my mind if I had read them today, but that kind of speculation really goes nowhere anyway.

frankly i find more relatable truths about the human condition in The Gap.

It could be that I'm finding the Gap a tough read because I can't relate very well to anybody in the story. There's no instant connection as with the Chronicles, but I'm determined to read the Gap only because it's SRD. If it were any other author, I would have dropped the Gap long ago.

[drew]

well i'll tell ya, the rape of lena has never made much sense to me.
yeah yeah i've read all the "he was impotent for so long" explanations.
that still just doesn't fly to me.
it's a justification to say that he didn't believe the world was real.
rape is rape. its preditory, it's control issues, it's angry and cruel.
the man is transformed (if thats what you can call it) to another
place and time, another world, and the first thing he does right off
the bat is rape a defenseless girl?
yeah, no, there's nothing i can even understand in that, much less
relate to.

THe way I see it, is that the rape was there, so that Elena would be there, AND that there would be some people with a real reason for hating Covenant.

-But-

For this reason, and others, I agree with Luci (hey there's a first time for anything) -I also never liked Covenant. (Of course I never liked Angus either, but I dont want to hijack the thread...we've discussed that one to death)
But its also what kept me reading the books.
Reading a book where the main character is someone I didn't like, or agree with, was amazing. Especially in the first Trilogy, I always empathized with the people who DIDN'T like Covenant...Atiaran, Trell, Triock and Quaan.

TC was always such an asshole to Foamfollwer too...I never understood why he defended him so much.

One of the most moving parts in the first series, was at the Colossus, when Triock is NOT possessed by a Raver, and yet still deals Covenant with the hatred that he locked up inside of himself for the last 47 years.
I think I can relate to Triock more than Covenant.

[hpty603]

I'm really surprised that 18 of 22 people said that they relate to Covenant. I'd like to see how people think they relate to a social pariah with one of the deadliest diseases in the world

[lorin]

I'm really surprised that 18 of 22 people said that they relate to Covenant. I'd like to see how people think they relate to a social pariah with one of the deadliest diseases in the world

Many things in many lives can force us into the role of a social pariah. People with Aids have been ostracized and isolated since the onset of the disease. People with deformities also assume the roles of social outcasts. People with mental illness such as, szophrenia psychotic disorder, delusional behavior also exist on the outskirts of society.
And then there are those people that perceive themselves a pariahs and inflict self imposed isolation on themselves.
I think one of the great things about the trilogies is that everyone, or at least most everyone can relate at some time in their lives to that sense of isolation and desperation.

[wayfriend]

I'm really surprised that 18 of 22 people said that they relate to Covenant. I'd like to see how people think they relate to a social pariah with one of the deadliest diseases in the world

I don't think "relate to" implies that anyone feels that they are in the same situation, or can envision being in the same situation. Just that they can see connections between situations that they have been in, and Covenant's situation. Sometimes the connections are tenuous or obscure. But it's a measure of our capacities as humans that we can make those connections and relate to people. Assuredly, the world is a better place because of it.

[hpty603]

I guess. It still seems like a really far stretch for me to say that I can relate to Thomas Covenant. Maybe it's just the title. When it says "can you really relate," I guess I just thought of it on a more literal sense