Death and what comes after -- ware spoilers

[Zarathustra]

I would assume that the appearance of this false Covenant is exactly why covenant warned Linden to remember that he's dead.

Maybe the Covenant who warned Linden to remember that he's dead was the false Covenant. I mean, if the idea of a false Covenant is plausible at all, why can't it be the voice in her head, rather than the person she sees at the end of Runes?

Wayfriend's GI quote (which was a fantastic, forgotten gem to recover!) seems to make it plain that Covenant is not dead. If he's like Caer Caveral, then he's merely transformed. And Foul is trying to mislead Linden by perpetuating the idea that Covenant is dead. In one sense, this is true: he's dead in the real world. So she's spent 10 years living with this as a fact. Perhaps Foul is relying upon that habit of thinking to mislead her, to blind her to the fact that things are different in the Land. So when Covenant finally appears, she'll mistrust him--just like we all do (hence all the "false Covenant" speculation).

There was a bit in that quote not emphasized by Wayfriend. Let not overlook this:

In Covenant's case, the destruction of his mortality freed his spirit to support the Arch of Time. . .

This is a strange way to describe what happened to him. When someone dies, their mortality reaches its culmination--it does NOT get destroy. It gets fulfilled. The person gets destroyed, not their mortality. Mortality is the possibility or inevitability of being destroyed. So in a sense, Covenant wasn't killed as much as he was made "immortal."

[wayfriend]

I always thought that Covenant's transformation included dying in the Land. But because he had died in his real world, his spirit was free to become one of the Dead of the Land, and also to become part of the Arch of Time. (Whereas, if he had not died in his real world, he would have been returned to it, and so could not do any of these things). Hence, the "destruction of his mortality" is that he did die in the Land. But he is not totally erased from the Land - his spirit lives there, unreturned, in a transcendant state.

If you die in the real world, you are free to remain in the Land. You may also transcend. It is not clear that you need to "destroy your mortality", although Covenant did - that is his particular, personal path to transcendance. (Probably because dying was his particular, personal path to redemption.)

[Nerdanel]

I think there is one critical question:

If someone Dead is resurrected, can they still be commanded by basically anyone?

I think this will be a significant plot point, and I suspect that the answer to the question will be yes...

[wayfriend]

If it were true, a lot of guys might envy Sunder for having a command-able spouse! (Ahem. Not I, of course.)

Can the Dead be commanded in general? Or only dismissed?

Anyway ... I don't think so. Resurrection, in this sense, is that you cross back over the boundary and are once again numbered among the living. If there is any reason that the Dead can be dismissed, it is because they are not among the living - they are ineffectual.