So i finished the Illearth war last night at 3 am (spoilers)

[Revenant]

High Lord Elena brings to mind Anele's comment: "[she] serves Lord Foul and knows it not..."

Her breaking of the Law of Death and subsequent end was the most devastating assault on the Land, even worse than High Lord Kevin's Desecration or the breaking of the One Forest.

The worst assault on the Land was the Creator's carelessness, not seeing his 'enemy' in his creation before 'closing' it.
The rest of the story is his creation's inhabitants trying as best as they can to survive his mistake, despite their limitedness and frail nature in front of the foul enemy.

Kevin's and Elena's downfall caused damages proportional to the power they wielded, desperately trying where no one else could or would... or should.
If they had succeeded — and of that none I think were absolutely certain — they would have saved what they most loved. Failling, they threathened it.
The power to save or damn the world: not the white gold's prerogative.

Under Melenkurion Skywier, she had in front of her the Blood of the Earth, the Seventh Ward, with its dangerous potency, but enormous possibilities; and besides her was Thomas Covenant, White Gold Wielder, essentially the most powerfull being on the Land, but who continued his state of unbelief and impotency and avoidance.
A terrible war is raging on, and as High Lord this was her time to act, to risk; she had to wield her responsibilities towards 'Land and life and all'. She — and Kevin — didn't have the luxury of solipsism or theories of dreams. She acted, tried what she could the best she could, given the time she had, knowing there was an urgent need as thousands were marching at war, as Covenant was unhelpfully whining besides her (as he admitted that he had manipulated her, so that she — not him — would be the one who would confront Foul).
Yes, she failed... but at least she acted.
(Dang! Even Bannor had to push TC into the crevasse to incite him to help Elena when she was single-handedly fighting Kevin!)

[Fist and Faith]

Feh! I'll always consider Elena to be a fool. As I've said elsewhere, she had ample warning that she shouldn't drink. Kevin set up the Wards so that nobody would gain access to the EarthBlood without first knowing all that he knew about power. And even knowing all that he knew, which is staggeringly more than Elena knew, he thought the risk was so great that he chose Desecration instead.

What's more, Amok told her Kevin's specific concerns. I think it's a safe bet that Kevin thought long and hard about it, desperately trying to think of a Command that would be safe. But he concluded there was nothing that he could be sure wouldn't allow Foul to do worse than the RoD.

And yet, although she JUST learned about this, and mulls it over carefully, for at least a couple of hours (sarcasm there ), Elena thinks she's got it all figured out. Covenant, understanding the dangers of power better than she does, begs her not to. But she knows better than anyone. After all, she has knowledge of Kevin that nobody else seems to have. Oh, wait, it's an entirely groundless fantasy about him. Ah well, not to worry. So she raises him from the dead!! Surely, that's a safe Command, eh?

[MrKABC]

High Lord Elena was naive, with a touch of madness.

Her heart was in the right place - she really wanted to save the Land and showed frustration at her inabilities to master Kevin's Lore (remember her actions when viewing "Lord Mhoram's Victory"?)

Still, I cared about her, and when she died I was sad

Spoiler

(although not as sad as when Susan Delgado died in Stephen King's Wizard and Glass)...

[matrixman]

Geez, Fist...you Haruchai are so judgmental!

[hierachy]

Two characters that are quite disliked are are Elena and Troy. I liked BOTH of those characters, very much.

Linden, however, needs to be decapitated and her head dropped into a volcano.

This is somewhat off topic, but needed to be said.

[Revenant]

Covenant, understanding the dangers of power better than she does, begs her not to.

He only understood the dangers power was for him, for his sanity, for his own survival in his reality. He didn't want to fight: he made sure others would take the responsibilities, the risks.
So he begs... He suggests that she take the knowledge of the Blood to the Lords...
But this was no touristic itinerary they took to get to Melenkurion Skywier. A great war is raging on. Eventually Troy's army survived, but we all know how. And we all know, or suspect, what would have happened when Foul's army had feasted upon all the warriors carcasses upon their victory, had it not been for Garroting Deep's Forestal, which was essentially unsuspected until the end.

But Elena didn't know about all that. She did know of the desperate situation, of the great need of urgent help for the Land.
Thomas Covenant didn't wan't, didn't know, and maybe even didn't really try to help. He avoided.
So, Elena called another legend for help...

So she raises him from the dead!! Surely, that's a safe Command, eh?

Kevin wanted people to be sure they gradually learned enough about power to go from one Ward to another. Then who else than him would know about all these Wards, their dangers, etc?
The Command to make Kevin come back to help the Land's inhabitants combat Foul is only bad retrospectively. But in itself it is an good choice: if she doesn't know about all the dangers, Kevin would tell her. And Kevin might even had learned from his mistake with the RoD...
Now of course this isn't what happened.

Is it really more foolish to command the return of Kevin from the dead than to summon again the white gold, Covenant, that can save as well as damn, and whose unbelief and continued mishaps clearly showed that it was his damning that might happen?
Eventually Mhoram himself couldn't resist the summon (WGW).
And eventually, the coming back of Covenant, that long-shot of a solution, was the deciding event for saving the Land, for a time.

But Covenant was a much greater risk than Kevin or the breaking of the Law of Death: he might have failed — and he did nearly fail — and Foul would have broken out the AoT with the help of the white gold, destroying all, something that no Kevin, no Elena, and even no Foul by themselves could have done.

Decisions had to be made, risks were taken, some leading to terrible consequences, others to salvation.

Elena knew that inaction — not only Covenant's but her own — was the only sure way to damnation.

It's all Covenant's fault in the end.
Oh, and the Creator's also

[Cail]

The Command to make Kevin come back to help the Land's inhabitants combat Foul is only bad retrospectively. But in itself it is an good choice: if she doesn't know about all the dangers, Kevin would tell her. And Kevin might even had learned from his mistake with the RoD...

Except that's not what happened, is it? Elena didn't summon Kevin for guidance or advice....

High Lord Kevin, I Command you to battle and defeat Lord Foul the Despiser! Destroy Fangthane! By the Power of the Earthblood, I Command you!

She summoned him to fight her battle, and more importantly, to fight the battle he'd already lost. Really bad move I'd say.

[Revenant]

"I offer you a Command to redeem that harm. You are Kevin son of Loric, the waster of the Land. You have known despair to its dregs you have tasted the full cup of gall. That is knowledge and strength which no one living can equal.

She already knows Kevin lost, failed, died, wasted the Land. Giving him another chance at it was, she thought, also the best chance for the Land, since the unwilling un-hero Covenant couldn't act, wouldn't act.

"High Lord Kevin, I Command you to battle and defeat Lord Foul the Despiser! Destroy Fangthane! By the Power of the EarthBlood, I Command you."
The specter stared aghast at her, and raised his fists as if he meant to strike her. "Fool!" he repeated terribly.
The next instant, a concussion like the slamming of a crypt shook the cave. One last pulse of anguish pummeled the High Lord's party; Elena's flame was blown out like a weak candle; darkness flooded the cave.
Then Kevin was gone.

She commanded him to do battle. He disapeared before she could say any other details she had in mind.

I do not — as I can't — deny, in retrospect, that what she did had horrible consequences. I just say that under the circumstances, at that moment, under urgency, her choice is defendable.

I remember when I first read The Illearth War, and came to these passages, hungry to know how the Seventh Ward would be, as TC, Elena, Amok and the Haru's went inside M.Sky. When they arrived, and the BotE was revealed, and more or less explained by Amok, it was with excitement that I awaited how it would be used, and when Elena commanded Kevin, I found that quite wonderfull, with such potentiality.
That was at the moment.
Then Kevin called her "Fool!", and I said to myself "Uh-oh...". And Donaldson then gave us another hearth-wrenching unforgettable episode where hope had dissolved into despair.

So this is what I mean: trying to forget what I know from hindsight, what she did was understandable, and one could have expected a great champion out of Kevin coming out from the dead... Just as they expected great help from Covenant — some kind of Berek out of the dead, no? — which almost came too late.

I don't think Covenant left her much choice, and his late-coming concern before she drank was quite late, quite impotent.

[matrixman]

Revenant makes a good point. With hindsight, we can, like the proverbial Monday night quarterback, always see every angle and know the good moves from the bad.

On the other hand, I think that by this point in the novel, SRD has set the stage so that the reader is emotionally already expecting something BAD rather than good to happen: the disturbing aura and "reek" of the Earthblood, the apocalyptic hate of Elena's "other sight", the warnings from Amok, and all the ominous hints about Elena's fate throughout the course of the story (Troy's foreboding that he would never see her again, and Elena's own foreboding when she looks at "Lord Mhoram's Victory" and asks what doom has befallen her, that she is not at his side to defend him from the ur-viles).

Therefore, when Elena summoned Kevin, I wasn't exactly celebrating. It was more like, Oh, crap, what's going to happen now?? You just sensed that SRD wasn't going to let Elena off the hook after that--simply have Kevin go off and kick Foul's butt, no problem at all...

[Revenant]

You can count on SRD to not let any character off the hook, to have them pay a dear price...

[High Lord Tolkien]

of course in all this elena couldn't help what happened to her. she was the child of rape, or of TCs anger at the Land.

Huh?
Where do you get that?
A "child of rape" has no choices?

her path was laid out for her to follow.

Only by SRD.