Kevin's Watch

ussusimiel wrote:

dlbpharmd wrote:Fair point, especially concerning Roger, who was of a sound mind and fully embraced Despite. But what about poor, insane Joan?

It may seem a bit harsh, but Joan gave into Despite when she abandoned TC at the start of LFB. She did it for the wrong reasons and subsequently knew it. Yes, she never really got a chance to redeem herself, but that, in a way, is an extension of her own self-judgement (aka Despite).

u.

She certainly did come to hate herself, which is how Despite works.

Once Linden had entered the picture there was never any chance for a good outcome for Joan and similarly with Rodger in respect of Jerremiah.[From the point of both SRD's writing and TC's viewing of them] For me this is one of Covenants greatest crimes and the one that in the end has me disliking him more than anything he previously did. There was precious little evidence of any grief over the plight or ultimate end of either of them - and what there was was of a self indulgent 'pity me' nature. How did the man of the first Chrons come to this? He and Linden make a perfect couple and Jeremiah is the icing on the cake. They all deserve each other.

I think that SRD put in more plot elements than he was ultimately able to handle.

Roger was definitely one of them.

In the end, it's not so much his death that disappointments me as Covenant's complete lack of reaction.

"Oh. Well first Foul turned my son into an ax-crazy sob and now he just turned him into a gooey mass in front of me. Time to give the Despiser a big ol' hug 'cause he did such a good job taking care of my loose ends for me."

Fully agreed - all the signs of a writter in a hurry to be gone.

Since reading AATE I've wondered whether Donaldson had a new love in his life and wanted to forget about a first wife and children. Joan and Roger's very existence are made an anathema that Thomas Covenant needs to put down to get on with his life.

This is especially unsettling when compared to the endless preaching on nonjudgementalism and forgiving of the unforgivable heaped on Linden and Jeremiah.

Also agree that the smoth joining of Covenant with the Despiser was too rushed and uneventful.

God Shoe - I hope thats not true. It would be a miserable state of affairs agreed!

Yes, I didn't seriously consider it. I think the idea of writing what you know is given too much weight. People do have imaginations and the ability to understand foreign points of view. Still, the treatment of Joan and Roger in the Last Chrons bothered me.

shadowbinding shoe wrote:...Joan and Roger's very existence are made an anathema that Thomas Covenant needs to put down to get on with his life.

This is especially unsettling when compared to the endless preaching on nonjudgementalism and forgiving of the unforgivable heaped on Linden and Jeremiah.

...

It does seem really odd how little respect these two characters get in the story. In the LC, we're shown that Ur-viles are great, the Lurker ain't so bad, Cavewights have feelings and children, too, Kastenessen is just hurting and aggrevied, so he should be protect in the Fane, too. Linden who nearly destroyed the world is the greatest woman since Eve, Jeremiah who is a sniveling little twerp and possessed by a Raver is just awesome, and even Lord Foul himself should be forgiven and incorporated into our main protagonist hero .... BUT screw Roger and Joan, they're irredeemable.

WTF? I'm supposed to feel sorry for cave goblins and swamp tentacles, but an ex-wife and abandoned kid gets no sympathy or redemption whatsoever? In my opinion, their redemption was an absolute necessity in order to bring this series to close, because of the way all this started. Now, it's as if the First Chronicles didn't happen or didn't matter at all. Those characters--that family--are expendable story elements. That's a damn shame, and for me it undermines everything that went before. I can't read Lord Foul's bane and feel bad for Covenant losing his wife and kid, knowing that he just ends up killing them later, and then gets to live out his remaining years as a god. That's bullshit.

TC's absorbtion of LF did happen too quickly. I've mentioned elsewhere that SRD should have had this happen halfway through the LC, and then we could see what TC is like once he accepts his inner Despiser--we could see this inner struggle in his choices, and truly be in suspense about whether or not he could control it. Otherwise, it's like TC had absolutely no character arc in this Chronicles. He is resurrected "broken." That's not his character, it's a plot device. Then he is restored at the end of AATE. Once he's restored, he doesn't learn or grow or change or have any epiphanies. He simply absorbs Foul at the end because that was the preplanned ending since 1985, apparently. It's a formula.

It's like TC didn't learn anything from his first two battles with Foul. Sure, that's where he gets the resolve not to surrender yet again, but for all the inner psychodrama we're shown for these characters, we don't see any of their process for deciding what their final solutions will be. There's no hint of TC's or LA's thought process making those choices seem necessary to them, instead of necessary to the abstract structure chosen by the author.