"Stephen Donaldson raped my childhood..."

[masrock]

I think the phrase is a pretty dumb one. Harsh words, probably.

I agree that it implies a complete lack of understanding of what being raped is.

Let me help you with this one.

rape
n.

1. The crime of forcing another person to submit to sex acts, especially sexual intercourse.
2. The act of seizing and carrying off by force; abduction.
3. Abusive or improper treatment; violation: a rape of justice.


tr.v. raped, rap·ing, rapes

1. To force (another person) to submit to sex acts, especially sexual intercourse; commit rape on.
2. To seize and carry off by force.
3. To plunder or pillage.


So care to explain how reading a book 'raped your childhood'?

Did it abduct your youth?
Or force your innocence into an unwilling sexual act?
Or were you trying to sound clever?

I guess what you meant was that you lost a little innocence by reading something that you were not mature enough to deal with.

By the way, the above post was mee having a little fun by answering how I Imagine covenant may have answered himself.

Masrock

[burgs]

Of course it's meant as symbolism. It's not meant to be taken literally. Perhaps even just to entice a riot here.

Regarding the rape scene, I didn't care much for Covenant even before then. Although I was no more than 13, I certainly I understood the extremity of his situation. Everything he loved was taken from him. He went from being happy to having to struggle to survive. Even so, he was an irascible jerk. Plenty of people struggle through potentially fatal illnesses without hating the entire world for their woes.

I'll touch on something that I didn't see here. When rereading the Chronicles to prepare for Runes, I paid especial attention to the entire sequence: Covenant's introduction to Lena to the despicable rape.

Just as Donaldson put Covenant's leprosy in front of us vividly and harshly prior to Covenant's appearance in the land, Donaldson also put Lena's tremendous beauty and budding sexuality in front of Covenant. I picture Lena as a yount girl of perhaps unparalleled allure, and found myself attracted to her. Imagine, then, what a leper would do who is an ill-tempered, self-pitying jerk who suddenly has his own sexuality awaken after such a long time of it being dormant? Not everyone would do what he did - but he did it. Surprisingly, I found that particular scene to be some of Donaldson's worst writing. Compared to the rape in the Gap series, it was almost sophomoric. Anyway...I found that my distaste for Covenant didn't change all that much, although I certainly was disgusted, revolted by, etc., his act. I think that's because I wasn't remotely surprised.

And to go back to something HLT said, Mhoram was the sense of balance for me in the books. He may have been the most essential character (aside from Covenant) in the series.

[UrLord]

Plenty of people struggle through potentially fatal illnesses without hating the entire world for their woes.

Covenant's reaction to his leprosy seems to be to simply be a logical result of his nature. Throughout the story, he's always been a "fighter." Not necessarily in a literal sense (after all, he hated killing), but rather emotionally. Recall in the very beginning of LFB, right after he was summoned by Drool, he's extremely frightened. However, as soon as Foul reveals his utter contempt for him, he instinct to fight kicks in, and he stands up to defy Foul. He responds to any enemies and hardship by rejecting and fighting them. The real world rejects and despises them, so he rejects it. He pays his phone bill in person in order to defy the people in town.

I don't really see him as a jerk because I always admired his "fighting spirit" or whatever you want to call it.

Of course, raping Lena was another way he thought he could fight his problems...unfortunately, the Land was not his enemy (no matter the dangers it posessed for a man who couldn't afford to dream of a better life), so all he accomplished was the damaging of an innocent girl. I don't intend to excuse this act; it was most certainly a terrible, terrible mistake on his part, but I understand the reason why he did it.

[burgs]

I don't really see him as a jerk because I always admired his "fighting spirit" or whatever you want to call it.

Of course, raping Lena was another way he thought he could fight his problems...unfortunately, the Land was not his enemy (no matter the dangers it posessed for a man who couldn't afford to dream of a better life), so all he accomplished was the damaging of an innocent girl. I don't intend to excuse this act; it was most certainly a terrible, terrible mistake on his part, but I understand the reason why he did it.

I'm using the word jerk in a very generic and broad sense. While plenty of people deal with life threatening illnesses and aren't as abrasive as Covenant (although yes, he does show very human qualities as you mentioned), Covenant had his own, very unique way of handling it.

This leads to his rape of Lena. I don't believe that it was "another way he thought he could fight his problems", I believe that he thought he was in a dream, and the consequences of his actions didn't strike him as something that mattered greatly. Of course as he spent more time in his "dream", he felt a greater sense of compunction for his act. We're not terribly far off in our opinions, other than what I mentioned in the first sentence of this paragraph.

[amanibhavam]

Yes, there are a lot of people who struggle through fatal illnesses without being so abrasive, but rather few people with fatal illnesses are completely cast out from society because of their illness that is not thier fault.

[masrock]

In no way is this an excuse for rape, just an attempt to understand what Covenant was going through.

He had everything that made us human taken from him over a period of several years.

He had no sensation in his extremities- he couldn't touch an feel someone.
He was ostracisied from his community - so he couldn't interact socially with anyone.
He was made impotent, so he could even drive to another county and even PAY someone for sexual gratification.
And although he could love someone, because his wife had abandoned him taking his son with her, he couldn't feel love returned.
This is for years remember.

Then in an instant, with no cost or effort, it's all given back to him. Wham!
But he couldn't risk believing what has happened, because when he woke up, it would kill him, or put him back in the leprosarium- a place he feared to return to.


How do you hurt a man who has had everything taken away? Give him something back, broken.

So can you blame him for being totally overwhelmed? He was as if he'd taken too much of every mind altering narcotic in the world. He went mad. out of his mind. His body reacted to the most profound return of his potency, his sex drive,

And then he spent the rest of his life trying to atone for his crime.

Masrock

[amanibhavam]

Just as I have said this many times on the Watch before, I strongly believe SRD never wanted us to forgive TC, never wanted to give excuses; he wanted us to understand him, and show us the process how he realises his crime and makes an attempt at restitution.

[amanibhavam]

Also I believe the rape scene is necessary from the point of symbolism. The rape of Lena by TC is exactly the same that Foul is doing to the Land. No other crime could describe it better.

[burgs]

Yes, there are a lot of people who struggle through fatal illnesses without being so abrasive, but rather few people with fatal illnesses are completely cast out from society because of their illness that is not thier fault.

You're forgetting AIDS.

[amanibhavam]

I am not. In fact in an old post I suggested once that had SRD written TCTC 5 years ago and not twentyfive, he might've made TC into a person having AIDS, not leprosy. But still, AIDS IMHO never had that "God's punishment" air going with it in people's minds.

[masrock]

Also I believe the rape scene is necessary from the point of symbolism. The rape of Lena by TC is exactly the same that Foul is doing to the Land. No other crime could describe it better.

I can't say I agre with that symbolism.

The despiser wants to destroy the land to gain his freedom. He doesn't want to dominate it, or subject it to his will, or take something from it. The Despiser doesn't gain pleasure as such from destruction either. - Just relief from something worse that the Despiser feels.

I think The Despiser manouvers people like Covenant into situations that lead them to their own downfall. There is a large element of free will that is needed in everything the Despiser does. I Suppose that if he can monouver someone into choosing to do something evil, then the results are exponentially more powerful. Its only the most powerful destructive event than come close to breaking the world and allowing the Despisers freedom. Its all a means to an end for him.

Masrock

[I'm Murrin]

Without going into the motives and the morality of it, I will say that the rape was certainly necessary in the Chrons. Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever, Illender and Prover of Life, was the product of that act. Without guilt, Covenant would have damned rather than saved. I believe that Covenant recognised that fact - knew that it was his one most terrible act which gave him the power to face Despite. It shows clearly in the Second Chrons - in the fact he wrote a book titled Or I will sell my soul for guilt...
Of course, Linden knows that there is more than one way to face Corruption. There is also love in the world.

[burgs]

I completely disagree. Have you ever watched the news when there's a gay pride parade? Dozens upon dozens, if not hundreds (depending on the city) of evangelicals and fundamentalists descend upon the parade declaring that AIDS is God's cure for faggots. I won't pardon myself if I'm insulting anyone that shares that philosophy: what a bunch of idiots.

Certainly AIDS hasn't been around long enough to share the lengthy stigmatization that leprosy has (and that was mostly the fault of very uneducated people from Biblical through the Renaissance period, and then a lingering affect that bled into the present day), but the vehemence expressed by certain members of society against those that have AIDS is staggering to see. At least with leprosy it's not the lepers fault. With AIDS, many believe: hey, you goofed and had relations you shouldn't have; deal with it. (Of course there are plenty of people who don't believe that.)

If that's a "liberal agenda", as someone accused me of having before, then I'm proud of it.

[Edge]

I am not. In fact in an old post I suggested once that had SRD written TCTC 5 years ago and not twentyfive, he might've made TC into a person having AIDS, not leprosy. But still, AIDS IMHO never had that "God's punishment" air going with it in people's minds.

Au contraire - at least in it's early days, AIDS was regarded by many as 'God's punishment for homosexuality'. Of course, for that to work, TC would have to be gay, hence no Joan, and no Roger.

..... ........

I demand a rewrite!

[Iryssa]

No...Leprosy is necessary to the books...and it's a huge part of Donaldson's life; his father was a missionary to lepers...and he needed the numbness, the impotence, the VSE, and the ease of suicide, I think.

[burgs]

I don't think that anyone's arguing against that...AIDS or cancer would not have had the same meaning. TC needed to be a leper for the entire series to work. Any other "illness", and it wouldn't.

[Iryssa]

I agree, Burgs...it was just suggested that if he had written the books later than he did, Covenant would have had AIDS instead of Leprosy...I was just countering that...which was really, in a way, agreeing with the post that statement was in...*shakes head* but I digress...
I guess I should've quoted what I was countering...laziness took over, though

[esmerlover]

I hope you didn't read the gap series as a youngster.

[Tjol]

I found the first series, and then the second series shortly thereafter, in my midteens, and in all truth the tragedies were balanced enough with the triumphs. I can't remember all of the redemptions, as it's just about time for me to reread through them again, but it seems that most of the bad things that happened were corrected as the stories developed. The tragedies even pushed things along so that a "happy ending" could be arrived at.

As far as I can tell, the reading of the stories didn't make me cynical or jaded at a young age....

[Creator]

Hail and be welcome at the Watch Tjol!