The Crux of It . . . . . . . (end of 2ndC openly discussed)

[Insanity Falls]

Flaming Ears!!

[MrKABC]

LOL Insanity Falls for your sig... Does White Gold actually COME in carats?

How about.....

Mhoram said : "YOU are the White Gold"
And Covenant said : "How many Hile Troy ounces?"

[CovenantJr]

So I stand by "oversight"

If you mean that Linden having the Ring at the end of WGW was an accident I would suggest that it was very much deliberate and for an obvious reason: she needed to have it still for the Last Chronicles (which SRD claims to have planned even way back then). Otherwise we would have needed someone to dig up Covenant’s ten-year-buried body to get the Ring for Linden in Runes.

Or she could have just stood up and taken it off him.

[Insanity Falls]

"How many Hile Troy ounces?"
HeHeHeHeHe!
Excellent!
A beautifully ironic jab, that I can just see Thomas Covenant saying!

Have you seen Jay's cartoon?
Its brill!
kevinswatch.ihugny.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=190759#190759

[Insanity Falls]

Or she could have just stood up and taken it off him.

And then Covenant Junior just HITS US OUT OF THE BLUE with an excellent idea!

Damn! Stephen Donaldson is really playing with us!

********************************************************

BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT ....
I recall Linden clutching "her wedding ring" very tightly, as if she had NEVER LET GO OF IT since picking it up in Ridjeck Thome (whilst the Staff fell out of her hands as she vanished across the worlds ... )
[Please understand that I don't have the book on me!]
Certainly SRD left *this* reader, and *many many* readers, with the impression that she had the ring ALL ALONG, and had it in her paw when she recovered herself in the "real world".

And *certainly* this was intentional!!

CJr - I am a pretty damn confident that you *are* aware that SRD establishes the ENDINGS of his novels FIRST, before writing a word, and then when he does write, he writes *everything* in the novel directed towards that ending. (I say that because you are a well-established member here, and will very likely have come across that info here, or on stephendonaldson.com. Please pardon me if I am wrong!)

And so the notion that

I was and am of the opinion that the last line of WGW is nothing more than an authorial/editorial blip.

is laughable!

If you don't like the word "denial", perhaps "ridiculous" will suit!

Incidentally, that "denial" comment was uncalled for. Please don't do it again. A differing opinion does not constitute being in denial.

Oh CJr, as if I said "denial" because your opinion happenned to be different from mine! How cheeky we are!

It is evident to all that I cried "denial" because of the SUBSTANCE of your opinion!

I respect that you are a different person, quite possibly with a different take on all sorts of things. And I totally accept that we differ here. I was expressing myself honestly, and I am quite happy with what I said.

I say what I think, and expect to carry on doing so!

Perhaps you are teasing me! I can't tell. Unlike the "veterans", I can't say I know you!

*********************************************************

EVERYONE -

Is there ANYONE OUT THERE who thinks that the ring appearing in Linden's hand in the "real world" when she arrives back at the end of White Gold Weilder, can be successfully "explained" if the ring ALWAYS TRAVELS PHYSICALLY TO THE LAND (ABSENTING ITSELF FROM THIS WORLD).

ANYONE ELSE OUT THERE FIND THIS AN EXCITING IDEA??

[wayfriend]

Personally, I feel this is just some extra magic for us. A little miracle to liven our day.

If I have to think about it too much, I would say that the author thought that a miracle at this point was a tad better than having Linden pillage Covenant's corpse as the last thing we see her do.

[Grimmand Honninscrave]

I have to disagree. I think Covenant would want Linden to have his ring. They were tied together from the moment they were brought to the land. They needed each other and relied on each other to survive. It was as they were married. She earned the right to it.

[Aleksandr]

Or she could have just stood up and taken it off him.

How awkward an ending would that have been:

"Excuse me, Dr Berenfiord while I yank the ring off his finger so I have something to remember him by."
And as she left the glade Linden Avery kept a tight hold on the ring she had just stolen from Covennant's corpse.

[Creator]

Perhaps their "BOND" on the Giantship made the magic possible. If Foul can somewhat materialize in a bonfire in the "real" world, why couldn't the ring dematerialize from TC "real" hand and materialize on Linden's "real" hand when he ceded the ring to her after his "death" in the Land?!

[CovenantJr]

"Excuse me, Dr Berenfiord while I yank the ring off his finger so I have something to remember him by."
And as she left the glade Linden Avery kept a tight hold on the ring she had just stolen from Covennant's corpse.

[Insanity Falls]

I decided some time ago not to read the GI.

Oops!

Note-to-self: Cease making assumptions about people!

[wayfriend]

I have to disagree. I think Covenant would want Linden to have his ring. They were tied together from the moment they were brought to the land. They needed each other and relied on each other to survive. It was as they were married. She earned the right to it.

Exactly. And before she left the Land, she was holding on to that ring, which she was gifted with and which she deserved. When the summons ended, and she was returned to the 'real' world, that transference 'leaked' through somehow. What was the mechanism? Does it matter? It's a beautiful way to end the story. It's just a tiny deserved miracle, which defies logic.

But consider that the Creator gifted Covenant at the end of Chron I. Perhaps this was Linden's gift from the Creator. Or Linden's gift from TC, who may have been able to make this happen also.

[Revenant]

What would an hypothetical observer (or rather us, as readers!) see, as Linden came back to the 'real' world, at the end of WGW?
Would it have seen the ring fading from TC's finger, appearing on Lindie's?

Recreating the above scene in one's mind, one might feel it is beautiful, romantic, testimony to the power of love, etc; while another might feel that this kind of magic is more of the Land's world's nature, and not of the real world's nature (TC appears/fades from the Land as he is summoned/unsommoned, but never fades from the real world).

That such magical things are normal in fantasy is understandable, unquestionably accepted when they happen: when we read fantasy, we expect such phenomenon.

What I loved about the Chronicles is that there was this dichotomy: on the one hand, the 'real' world (that we identify to our world); on the other, this world where the Land resides, which has the (stereo)typical taste and texture of a Fantasy World, and all the usual phenomena associated with such a context.

So I was slightly disapointed -- slightly -- about the WGW ending, with the teleported ring. It removed one of the thing that made the Chronicles settings incredibly appealing to me.
But I don't find SRD's choice as a 'blip', an oversight. It's a choice, it doesn't contradict anything in the Chronicles (i think). Why not make the 'real' world also a place of Magic?
It just taste a bit bland to me, as an ending.
(That the bound between TC and Linden was so strong that it permitted the teleportation... Too schmaltzy. "That's too easy", as some character would have said. )

But then again maybe SRD was telling us that things are now different in the real world, that now the Land's magic is seeping through.
And that this was just a beginning.

Who knows. The final explanation might come in ten years, when he's finished with the last chronicles...

[Grimmand Honninscrave]

Lord Foul could affect things in our world as well as his own. He affected the people and Joan. Not directly but through thought. In this way I think some things that happen in the Land could affect our world. When Linden took Covenants ring. In our world, it past to her hand. The Land is a magical place and things that re strange to use could happen.

[hierachy]

There is actually an old thread on this topic that Revan started quite a while back.

And as Murrin said, SRD mentioned that it as a deliberate loose end, in the GI.

[wayfriend]

That such magical things are normal in fantasy is understandable, unquestionably accepted when they happen: when we read fantasy, we expect such phenomenon.

Well said, Revenant; the whole post.

SRD spoke of this when he mentioned "alogic" in the GI recently.

With respect to earlier "leaks", don't just consider the possession (which, being purely mental, might not be considered a true leak). How about yellow eyes appearing in a fire?

[Revenant]

Well, the biggest and first leak is the summoning of TC in the Land by Drool (or was it the summoning of 'white gold', which brought him there by choice of the Creator?)
But then again it's not a physical transportation (bodies stay in reality).

As for people's possession and yellow eyes seen in fire, both are mental aspects, essentially, and are not uncommon in reality (sects, drugs, rock&roll ). They take place at the border between the two worlds, the two 'realities', the two nature, and the mind and its perceptions are the ones affected.
The teletransportation of the ring is a physical process. Again, what would an observer see when Linden comes back from the Land at the end of WGW? The bodies were always there the whole night, unconscious, nothing special... and then poof! the ring fades from here and goes there?

I don't deny (now) that this it what happens in the story, and that it was intended. I don't consider it as an oversight, a 'blip', and accept that this is a 'loose end' put there (since he said it, and have to accept it as such, for the purpose of this discussion).

I'm just saying it's... well, schmaltzy as said earlier. Especially since so many years, nearly 20 years, we didn't really know SRD intended a third chronicle, and didn't have to take it as a loose end.
(I personally thought for long that she physically took it after waking up, as Berenford came to her, and that this wasn't explicitely written, but implicitely meant by telling us she wore the ring... Not as romantic and wow-look-it-jumped-magically-from-his-finger-to-hers!, but it worked, didn't contradict the story. It's when the point was brought up long ago that it made me think that it could be a possible ending... and since the GradInterview, have to accept it as the intended ending. *sigh* )

Taken at face value, in a context where there was only two chronicles and that there was no other to be expected (although wished-for) -- and this context existed for so many years -- I wouldn't blame someone who thought that ending was a 'blip', an oversight.
The fact that SRD now says it was a loose end... well, he's the boss, I and others have to go along and trust him.