Kevin's Watch

This is a bit long, but it's probably the best bit in LFB.

Covenant doesn't even think about Lena after chapter 7, this is when he stumbles back onto the thought in Manhome. If anyone started reading the books but was put off by the rape, this is the passage to convince them that Covenant hated what he had done.

He glanced up at her.

'You must take food,' she scolded. 'Already you are half dead.' Her shoulders were squared, drawing her shift tight over her breasts. She reminded him of Lena.

Prothall was saying, 'He has not told us all that occured at the Celebration. The ravage of the Wraiths was not prevented - yet we believe he fought the ur-viles in some way. His companion blamed both herself and him for the ill which befell the Dance.'

Covenant trembled. Like Lena, he thought. Lena?

Darkness pounded at him like claws of vertigo. Lena?

For an instant, his vision was obscured by roaring and black waters. Then he crashed to his feet. He had done that to Lena - done that? He flung the girl aside and jumped toward the fire. Lena! Swinging his staff like an axe, he chopped at the blaze. But he could not fight off the memory, could not throw it back. The staff twisted with the force of the blow, fell from his hands. Sparks and coals shattered, flew in all directions. He had done that to her! Shaking his half-fist at Prothall, he cried, 'She was wrong! I couldn't help it!' - thinking, Lena! What have I done? - 'I'm a leper!'

I couldn't resist posting this passage - I though about chopping some bits out to shorten it, but it's just such a good passage I didn't want to ruin it.

Favorite quote of the series:
"It was a great evil. I have destroyed it."

yeeeeaaaahhhh...


Actually, we kind of bastardized this one a little in my D&D campaign. The PCs are facing a really nasty enemy. One of them has been known to mutter: "It is a great evil. We have annoyed it."

The passage about the birth of the Ravers is very haunting and lyrical. I enjoy pondering on the mystery of 'their long-forgotten mother'.

Someone once mentioned that their names expressed noble sentiments in Hindi: samadhi, moksha, turiya ... Perhaps their mother had high hopes for them when they were born.

Peter.

jehannum_2000 wrote:Someone once mentioned that their names expressed noble sentiments in Hindi: samadhi, moksha, turiya ... Perhaps their mother had high hopes for them when they were born.

Murrin, that's a excellent quote!!!

bannors 'we suffice' is great, but TCs reaction makes it even better.

"Bravo"

Again, too long to type out in it's entirety, but for me, the single defining passage of the first Chronicles is the one in the "Winter" chapter in Power that Preserves, where Lena talks desperately of her waiting for Covenant to return to her, how she has remained unchanged.

It ends with Foamfollower's heart-wrenching reply:

"You are too beautiful, my Queen," he told her gently. "You surpass me."



The passage demonstrates the extravagance, the sacrifice, the corruption that the people of the Land have undergone for Covenant's sake.[/i]

i have so many faves, but here r a few...

Sighing to herself, she did what she could for the last of the wounded - watched him die because she was only one woman and had not reached him in time.

It is not death. It is purpose. We will redeem the Earth from corruption.

Her spirit became the medicament that cured. She was the Sun-Sage, the Healer, Linden Avery the Chosen, altering the Sunbane with her own life.

With her right hand, Linden Avery kept a sure hold on her wedding ring.

And Thomas Covenant, who doubted everything, felt Prothall's resolution and dignity so strongly that he said nothing.

But Tuvor's eyes held Covenant and he managed to whisper one word, 'True?' His whole body strained with supplication, but Covenant did not know whether he asked for a promise or a judgement.

Yet the Unbeliever answered. He could not refuse a Bloodguard, could not deny the appeal of such expensive fidelity. The word stuck in his throat but he forced it out. 'Yes.'

'Aided?' Lord Hyrim gasped. 'There is no aid for them!'

'Have you forgotten how High Lord Elena carved our faces as one in her last marrowmeld work?'

'No.' Bannor had moved him. His response was both an assertation and a promise. 'I will never forget.'

Hey variol son, here's another one for your eyes. Not that it's not awesome for the rest of us too!!

"We have beauty, too. We call it 'scenery.'"

"'Scenery,'" Mhoram echoed. "The word is strange to me - but I do not like the sound."

Covenant felt oddly shaken, as if he had just looked over his shoulder and found himself standing too close to a precipice. "It means that beauty is something extra," he rasped. "Its nice, but we can live without it."

"Without?" Mhoram's gaze glittered dangerously.

And behind him Foamfollower breathed in astonishment, "Live without beauty? Ah, my friend! How do you resist despair?"

Linden and Covenant in Glimmermere: WGW Chapter 12, Those Who Part::

"How come I disappear and you don't?"

"I already told you!" He replied, splashing water at her. "Wild magic and venom. The keystone of the Arch." Swimming in this lake, he could say even those words without diminishing her gladness. "The first time I was here, I couldn't see myself either. You're normal!" His voice rose exuberantly.

"Glimmermere recognizes me!"

This brings a lump to my throat, because it was one of the rare times that Covenant is actually happy. I can almost hear the exuberance in his voice.

"Glimmermere recognizes me!"

I've always felt the following was the passage--the summit of the First Chronicles. I suppose because it was the thing Covenant was searching for all through the first three books. And the fact he found himself an answer showed how much his character had become enriched by the Land.

As he shambled numbly across the floor, he tried to tell himself that he had found his answer. The answer to death was to make use of it rather than fall victim to it--master is by making it serve his goals, beliefs. That was not a good answer. But it was the only answer he had.

Fist and Faith wrote:Hey variol son, here's another one for your eyes. Not that it's not awesome for the rest of us too!!

"We have beauty, too. We call it 'scenery.'"

"'Scenery,'" Mhoram echoed. "The word is strange to me - but I do not like the sound."

Covenant felt oddly shaken, as if he had just looked over his shoulder and found himself standing too close to a precipice. "It means that beauty is something extra," he rasped. "Its nice, but we can live without it."

"Without?" Mhoram's gaze glittered dangerously.

And behind him Foamfollower breathed in astonishment, "Live without beauty? Ah, my friend! How do you resist despair?"

And that's my second-favorite quote, Fist! Or maybe the one where Covenant first meets Foamfollower, and the part where the Giant's beard is in "mock salute", etc. That's probably in a tie with my second favorite. Their whole initial exchange, but the said "mock salute" is my favorite part of it.

Yeah, Duchess, you mentioned

There is also love in the world.

That is my favorite, too!

I also like this passage because I love Amok:

"High Lord," he said, "we do not know the name of the Seventh Ward's power. We have heard many names - some false, others dead. But one name we have heard only uttered in whispers by High Lord Kevin and his Council.
"That name is the Power of Command."
When Amok heard the name, he nodded until his hair seemed to dance with glee.

That was an awesome moment.

LFB:
"In the tower?Why?", "Two thousand years - It isn´t even decent!", "And now your ability to speak comes and goes. No! No?"
TIW:
"As she finished, she turned Myrha, faced the watchtower. From the Staff of Law, she sent cracling into the sky a great, branched lightning tree. At this sign, Lord Loerya threw her bundle into the air, and Lord Trevor pulled strongly on the lines of the flagpole. The defiant war-flag of Revelstone sprang open and snapped in the mountain wind."

Anything with Bannor is simply a classic.
At the end of chapter 18 after one of the Ramen kills a kresh:

..."but Bannor stepped over to the dead wolf and pulled Grace's rope from around its neck. Holding the cord in a fighting grip he stretched it taut.
'A good weopon,' he said with his awkward inflection...
Something in his tone reminded Covenant that the bloodguard were lusty men who had gone unwived for more than two thousand years.
Then, on the spur of an obscure impulse, Bannor tightened his muscles, and the rope snapped. Shrugging slightly, he dropped the pieces on the dead kresh. His movement had the finality of a prophecy. Without a glance at Cord Grace, he left the hilltop to mount the Ranyhyn that had chosen him."

Of course the word "mount" is perhaps unfortunate. But I guess Bannor would be getting pretty horny after all those years, LOL. But seriously the attitude of aloofness and inner calm becomes unveiled at times like these.
Great stuff

Yeah good quote that, he needed to go lift a few cars or something.

In his description of Vain, Hamako says : "A vast gulf lies between creatures that are born and those that are made. Born creatures, such as we are, do not suffer torment at the simple fact of physical form. Perhaps you desire keener sight, greater might of arm, but the embodiment of eyes and limbs is not anguish to you. You are born by Law to be as you are. Only a madman loathes the nature of his birth."

Also another one of my favorites is the humor of the giants even by one as stern and steadfast as the First.

"Behold I am Pitchwife the valorous, gaze upon me and suffer awe!"
"Forsooth! And if you do not climb down from yonder perch you shall become Pitchwife the fallen!"

And again: (probably misquoted but always cracks me up).
"Perhaps he contemplates ravishing the maidenhood of our foremast?" Pitchwife's offhand comment about the manner in which Vain stood staring at the Dromond's formast (which held Findal the appointed), knees and elbows slightly bent at the ready.

"I desire to hear the song in Pitchwife's heart" The wonderful subtle message of the intense love and bonding between the First and Pitchwife.

A giant pressed a flagon of diamonddraught into his (Pitchwife's)hands and he drank hugely. The giants around him cheered.

Wish I had copies with me of the whole series but I don't. Circumstances don't allow it at this time.

In the One Tree; The fact that he knew giants so well, even after knowing only just one of them shows how well Foamfollower represented his people... he instructed them to build a big fire before telling the story of the giants of Coercii self-inflicted genocide along with the moment that Covenant steps into the bonfire for the Giant's caamora and allows the dead their own caamora. Then the Search's pledge to him was (yet another) powerful moment in the story for me.

Also touching for me Covenant's reaction upon meeting Honniscrave<sic> for the first time in the Great Swamp. His reaction: speechless, and a sad overwhelming joy, points out how much he truly missed/loved Foamfollower.


Stone and Sea!

Here you go, kaseryn

I only have the Second chronicles with me.

'A Giant!'

'You and your companions.' He glanced over the company. 'And your gladness -' he touched the side of his jaw with one hand - 'is a weighty matter.'

'Pitchwife in good sooth,' the short Giant replied as if he had read Covenants heart. His chuckle sounded like the running of a clear spring. 'Other names I have been offered in plenty, but none pleased me half so well.'

'It appears,' Pitchwife chuckled, ' that Thomas Covenant's knowledge of giants is not so great as he believes.'

'But before they were dipelled, Linden caught one piercing glance fomr Cail, a look of reproach as if he had been betrayed. His voice lingered in the air after he was gone.
'We do not trust these Elohim.'

'But at that moment, he heard a series of thuds. The sounds of combat: blows exchanged, gasp and grunt of impact. Two powerful figures were fighting nearby.
....the guard lay on the floor, coughing up the last of its life. Over the husta stood Hergrom. He was poised to spring. Flatly, he said, 'Kemper, if you have harmed him, you will answer for it with blood.'

'Shadows accentuated Cails shrug' - The eloquent Haruchai shrug.

'Trembling as if he were on the verge of deflagration, he spoke the name he had been hoarding to himself ever since he had begun to understand the implications of what he meant to do.
The name of a Sandgorgon.
'Nom.'

'Then for a moment, he came so close to tears that his courage almost broke. Not one of his companions obeyed. Without a word, they arranged themselves for battle and followed him.'

My favorite is in TWL at the beginning. I can't find the actuall quote but it goes something like:

"What is the best way to hurt someone who has lost everything? Give him back something, broken." -TC

I thought it setup the second chronicles very well.

Ooh this looks the ticket, nice one Mhoram

Come! This is the caamora! Come and be healed!

What more can be said?