"I don't belong there"...

[Krazy Kat]

why is he not up there with Amis, Rushdie et al, feted by university proffesors and high culture journo's alike?

I thought he was. St.Andrews university honoured him last year.

[Zarathustra]

Maybe Covenant realized you can't live in a metaphor for your inner struggle against your own Despiser.

I think it's about, "Be true." He's not supposed to be there, after all. What's wrong with this answer? How could he have possibly chosen another and still be who he was?

The reason I have trouble with imagining the bolded part to be true is that Covenant is so messed up (already) at the very start of the Second Chrons

I think it's dangerous business trying to draw conclusions about the end of the 1st Chrons from the beginning of the 2nd, when SRD never intended to write the 2nd when he ended the first.

The reason TC is still so "messed up" at the beginning of the 2nd Chrons was that Power is not the ultimate solution to the problem of evil. (And neither is Sacrifice, hence the Last Chronicles.) It was a temporary solution. But that doesn't invalidate its veracity as a solution. Most things are temporary. Doesn't mean they're not true.

[Barnetto]

I think it's about, "Be true." He's not supposed to be there, after all. What's wrong with this answer? How could he have possibly chosen another and still be who he was?

I think "being true" is about being true to yourself and I don't really see that necessarily involves accepting that there cannot be change (locational) or you can't be true to yourself when taken out of your original environment. After all, the beggar/creator tells him to "Be true" before he ever sets foot in the Land.

It also seems to suggest that he can't be who he is without his leprosy, but as the quotes above show, he realises that he can transcend his leprosy. He isn't just his leprosy anymore.

Ultimately, my original post was more about the speed/lack of thought that needed to go into the decision. It comes across as if TC didn't even have to give it a second's thought.

It's true that his experience in the Land is ultimately pretty bleak and harrowing - it's not all hurtloam and aliantha. But, as Blackhawk points out, he is (as far as he knows) returning to a life a isolation as a pariah. OK, he may now be mentally equipped to fight that situation, but surely you'd give it a thought....

Of course, the ending wouldn't have felt remotely right somehow if TC had remained. He had to go back to square the circle. (And yes, there is still the remote possibility that his wife/son might come back to him.) But like Blackhawk, I can't help thinking that he would at least have been momentarily tempted.

(As regards why SRD isn't on Uni Courses etc, I'd have thought the answer is self-evidently that Fantasy isn't taken seriously, full stop.)

[Zarathustra]

Barnetto, I whole-heartedly agree that "be true" is about being true to yourself. But I believe you're oversimpflying things if you think being transported to the Land is merely a change in location.

Being true to himself was important in the Land, but that wasn't because he must be true to himself no matter which location he happens to be in, but rather because the Land was an externalized representation of his internal confrontation with his own self-despite.

It also seems to suggest that he can't be who he is without his leprosy, but as the quotes above show, he realises that he can transcend his leprosy. He isn't just his leprosy anymore.

He can't be human without accepting the reality of his mortality. He can transcend his disease in the sense that "this isn't all I am," but he can't transcend his mortality. As far as the 1st Chrons go, I don't believe that he could simultaneously stay in the Land and accept reality. The Land is true in an archetypal sense, not in a literal/actual sense. Just because TC's subconsciousness partakes in universal truths where he can meaningfully struggle with the question of What it Means to Be Human doesn't mean that he can actually live a human life there.

I realize that my points are dangerously close to a "level confusion," because the Land isn't literally figurative ( ) in the story itself. In the story itself, its ontological status is left intentionally, explicitly ambiguous. But for the purposes of the author, it's not literally, externally real. Therefore, this question of why TC had to leave has two answers: one from the perspective of Donaldson, one from the perspective of Covenant. SRD couldn't leave TC in the Land and have a thematically consistent work (this is why TC had to die to stay there in the 2nd Chrons). So SRD had to get TC out, but he had to do so in a way that didn't make the metaphorical status of the Land explicit in the story--in other words, in a way that didn't violate the ambiguity of the Land's reality within the story. So SRD did this in terms of where TC "belonged." It's the same point from two different perspectives . . . author's and character's. "I don't belong here," is a symbolic way to say that TC can't live in his "dream" (not really a dream, more like a Platonic realm of universal Forms, or a Jungian realm of archetypal truths, etc.) He can learn from this realm, but it wouldn't be true to live there. That's escapism.

Ultimately, my original post was more about the speed/lack of thought that needed to go into the decision. It comes across as if TC didn't even have to give it a second's thought.

On the contrary, I think TC spent the entire trilogy confronting this question. It was a quick answer because it was the only answer. It's like asking someone who learned to love life again whether they'd like to go on living.

But like Blackhawk, I can't help thinking that he would at least have been momentarily tempted.

I think he was "tempted" for nearly the entire span of the three books. I think your expectation here misses the fact that this offer from the Creator was the culmination of all those struggles. It was only an "easy" answer because of what TC had become after everything he'd done.