Um, impotent?

[wayfriend]

I've always believed that TC's initial impotence in the first series was emotionally determined. He hadn't been sick with leprosy long enough to sustain multisystem damage, I don't think; he was treated quite quickly after the infection took hold.

Covenant had numbness in all of his extremeties. There was no reason to suspect his impotence was only emotional until it turned out to be so, IMO.

[Nav]

I think this might be one of those SRD "errors" or "oops" moments.
Or maybe he learned more about leprosy in later years and realized impotence isn't always the case.
TC's leprosy is mentioned right through to the end of WGW so he never cured himself of that.

That's how I interpreted it. Quite an elegant fix though, attributing it to his psychological state following Joan's departure.

[Spring]

So maybe he was able to just... y'know... but he couldn't..... y'know.

I agree. Maybe Wild Magic served as a kind of stimulant for TC, but after that it was all up to the big man.

[Caer Bombadil]

Perhaps the Second Chrons can be viewed as Linden Avery's dream rather than Covenant's. After all Linden awoke from it eventually back into the Primary World; Covenant never did. There wasn't the opportunity in this world to exchange notes and say "Oh wow..."

This could possibly be invoked as an explanation of a few other matters too, such as the Creator v. Worm dueling mythologies. Ultimately, though, it would be related to the Big Question regarding to the extent the world of The Land objectively exists, and how and to what degree.

In this same vein, however, I was reminded of a little exchange b/t Covenant & Elena early in TIW that always made me a bit curious.

"I was impotent." He forced the jagged confession through his sore throat. "I forgot what it's like. Then we were alone. And I felt like a man again, but I knew it wasn't true, it was false, I was dreaming, had to be, it couldn't happen any other way. It was too much. I couldn't stand it."
"Do not speak to me of impotence," she returned tightly. "I am the High Lord. I must defeat the Despiser using arrows and swords." Her tone was harsh; he could hear other words running through it, as if she were saying, Do you think that mere explanation or apology is sufficient reparation? And without the diseased numbness which justified him, he could not argue.

Among other things, I had to wonder: did Elena even understand what he was talking about? Did the concept of sexual impotence even exist for the people of the Land at that time, what with hurtloam available freely & better than Viagra?

A little later he got into an exchange with Hile Troy on the subject of his alleged power and his responsibility.

... For all I know, this wild magic could turn on tomorrow or five seconds from now and blast us all ... It has nothing to do with me."
"Is that a fact?" Troy said sourly, "And since you don't have any power, no one can hold you to blame."
..."That's right!" he [Covenant] flared. "... The only person in life who's free at all, ever, is a person who's impotent. Like me. Or what do you think that freedom is? Unlimited potential? Unrestricted possibilities? Hellfire! Impotence is freedom. When you're incapable of anything, no one can expect anything from you. Power has its own limits - even ultimate power. Only the impotent are free."

It occurs to me that SRD is indicating here that Covenant was perfect for the Creator's purpose because being impotent he was free and therefore about as far away as humanly possible from being a tool of the Creator and negating the whole plan or worse. I thought it extremely interesting he chose to express Covenant's whole philosophy of power in terms of this word impotent with its sexual connotations of which we were reminded a few pages earlier.