Kevin's Watch

lol - I can't see "Hi, I'm an impotent leper" working for many people...

That one gave me a good laugh, CovenantJr!

Well I think LA got her health sense as SD wanted her to. She was a Doctor and that was her special gift. Do you not agree?

interesting 'amy' that you should call LA's medical profession her 'gift' .. I have been thinking about that .. and it would seem that it was also her curse ..

as far as her father and mother were concerned .. she was carrying a lot of baggage around with her .. and her 'gift' had some relationship with that baggage ..

I think that her experience in the Land cemented her professional knowledge and expertise with her senses .. that maybe before she arrived in the Land she had .. Just like the experience in the Land gave TC a different perspective on his life .. so it has had to have had the same impact on LA's life ..

I think the Creator perceived LA's potential .. the very potential which LA herself didnt recognise or acknowledge she had .. but her realisation of her full potential had to come through her own personal choices and exercise of belief in herself in the Land .. and undoubtedly if she never had the experience in the Land then it would have been similarly so for her in our world ..

She had to realise that there was love also in the world .. maybe not just the romantic love she shared with Covenant .. but the love she developed for the Land .. and what she saw TC struggling to achieve .. She had to catch the vision that TC and others had .. ie: the Haruchai ..

It may well be just juggling with semantics here .. but it would seem that there is a subtle distinction between her being a medical professional and her possessing the 'gift of healing' .. or her 'health sense' ..

I think the point is quite simple.

LA's problem is that she believes deep down she is impotent too - she couldn't heal either her mother or her father. Unlike Covenant though, she has accepted it, she tried to overcome it by becoming a professional healer.

Perhaps this is the difference between their two experiences in the land.

TC isn't impotent - he is the white gold/white magic, but he has conditioned himself into accpeting that he is impotent in it's truest meaning - without power. Hence he cannot muster the ability to use his power until his subconscious restraint becomes undermined by Marid's venom.

Linden however craves power and has throughout her life striven to hold it - what else do doctors do but hold extreme levels of power over people's lives? However her desire for power is to enact some expiation of her deeply held guilt. At the end of the chronicles, she realises that she isn't guilty and so can realise her true healing ability as TC never could have. That isn't what he is about.

Upto the end of the chronicles, LA wouldn't have been ready to handle the power of the wild magic. Maybe her almost angry desire to heal would have tainted the Earthpower - look what happened when TC tried to make a new Staff of Law under extremity.

I don't think profession comes into it with Linden, it's more about her self inflicted demons.

really well put .. it would really seem to be much less about her being a medical practitioner and more about the depth of the person she really was .. and as you rightly say .. her 'self inflicted' demons ..

.. I italicised because I wonder if it can all be put down to the 'child' 'the young girl' LA .. how is a child supposed to respond to witnessing her father's suicide .. aswell as her mother's death ..

I think such 'demons' .. as are all demons .. they are there because they are allowed to be .. I dont see her perpetuating them by wallowing in self-pity .. I think she has always had a a constant battle with them .. but as a LA the adult it was time to unburden herself of them .. and not until her experience in the Land was she finally able to overcome .. the absolute destructive (self-depreciating) capacity those demons represented to her ..

The Creator undoubtedly perceived her turmoil and retained faith in her ability to harnass the great strength that battling her demons and her ultimate victory over them .. would give her ..

To me .. it was really more about 'who' she was rather than 'what' she was ..

even though she irritated the crap out of me pretty much throughout the 2nd chronicles .. and I am not entirely sure why she irritated me so much .. but she did .. I only experienced a sense of reprieve re: this irritation .. on only a few occassions ..

Just one comment.

Linden did not just witness her father's suicide, but she caused her mother's death! Her mother was in the hospital, none of the nurses wanted to care for her because she was such an unpleasant woman, Linden had to sit with her day and night. Finally her mother says something along the lines of 'why don't you just kill me' or 'just let me die' - something to make the adolescent Linden feel bad. Linden unplugs the breathing machines and lets her die. She then plugs them back in and calls the nurses. LA reveals this when she finally tells TC her whole story. I think it is in WGW. Possible TOT. I'm not sure.

So, needless to say, she does have quite a bit of baggage. That is her guilt and, imo, why she is afraid of power (and, yes, I believe she is afraid of power). She took the power away from her own mother - in a sense posessed her - took away her freedom of choice and killed her. I don't see her as power hungry at all.

Did that by any chance go off the subject?

yes her role in her mothers death was more active .. you are right and I really didnt mean to suggest otherwise ..

but I really do wonder how anyone can be expected to respond to situations like that ..

I certainly wouldnt want to have been in her shoes and dont know if I could fascilitate a dying persons wish to end their lives or not .. my gut feeling is that I fear I would be unable to assist in their demise ..

but thats another issue .. isnt it?

Its only to be expected she would be carrying a sizeable amount of baggage after such experiences .. and if as you say she wasnt interested in power .. yet she clearly exercised a significant expression of power in ending her mothers life .. and then went on to becoming a medical practitioner where as someone else mentioned she was to experience a relative amount of power over life in her job .. exercising power to save life ..

I dont know if I see her as 'power hungry' per se .. but she was very eager to control the ring .. and believed it safer in her hands than TC's on a number of occassions .. didnt she?

She didnt .. to me .. seem to show any reticence re: taking the ring or possessing TC and overpowering his will .. even though admittedly she did hold some apprehension and regret about such a course .. she still did it ..

she converted all her personal power in2 an obsessive/possesive energy in her profession--perhaps her whole life was guilt and an apology 2 her mother--saving 10,000 lives 2 atone 4 1. So was so busy doing that and then adding another guilt trip on top of that, that she wasn't responsible 4: her father that she totally shut any hope of love out of her life. The Creator sought 2 rechannel that intense energy and drive and 2 xpose her 2 love. So, aside from healthsense, she really is pretty much bereft of her obsessive options in the Land: 2 control and exert power (which essentially is her life on our world--her "essense" so 2 speak) as she has in our world. Aside from helplessness and lack of direction she is desperately searching 4 a way 2 recapture her "essense". When she precieves TC 2 b 2 weak, like her mother, she is driven 2 the verge of substituting the power of the ring 4 that lack--but she knos if she takes it it's almost the same as smothering her mother--taking TC's power being akin 2 her mother's power over her own life and death, choice...If u throw in the TC is LF theory If TC is actively killing himself through the venom--that is akin 2 watching her father die. Then u have Gibbon saying--go ahead take the ring--like the devil tempting her natual obsessive state and the Elohim messing w/her mind w/Chosen and Ring Wielder r meant 2 b 1--she begins 2 think that there really is no reason 2 feel guilty about taking the ring...which makes u wonder if the Elohim really were on our side!?? They r weird, that's 4 sure...

hmmmm,

intersting replies Danlo/Skyweir, I need to go cogitate.

LA did irritate me big style as well. I like your comparison between TC?LF and LA's father - I think there's some mileage in that.

Hmm, very thought provoking... I've read the discussion, and read it again... and I feel that I haven't gotten to the bottom of it.
Hamako wrote that Linden is craving for power, Cammora says that she is afraid of power, Sky says she was eager to control the ring, and Danlo says she converted all her personal power in2 an obsessive/possesive energy.
What excatly is meant by the word power? Is it someone's ability to control their own destiny, or is it the ability to control others; make them do things aginst their belief/judgment, or is it the ability to change the course of natural occurrences, or just simple force?
And what kind of power was wild magic?

-pitchwife

Danlo, you beat me to it. Yes, of course, LA became a doc in order to atone for killing her mother. And I like your parallel between the venom taking over TC and the mental sickness that took over LA's dad; you really don't have to buy into the TC=LF theory to see that parallel.

The Elohim were on the Elohim's side. If they'd been on our side, Findail would've bonded with Vain as soon as he saw him, and that whole trip across the ice wouldn't have been necessary.

Pitchwife, I think of personal power as the ability to control your own destiny. That would include the ability to influence or direct events around you in order to achieve your goals. I don't think it's at all contradictory for LA to crave power and fear it at the same time. The one time when she truly took control of her life, her mother ended up dead. She's experienced both the elation of reaching a desperately-desired goal, and the icky stuff (despair, self-loathing, etc.) that comes with tapping the Dark Side of the Force, if you will.

In one sense, Linden's struggle to come to terms with her personal power is the same internal struggle that TC fought in regard to the wild magic. TC desired the power but distrusted it -- he didn't believe it was real, but also he didn't think a leper deserved it, just as Linden didn't think a mother-killer deserved respect. In that sense, I guess you could say that the wild magic was TC's personal power made manifest.

Exactly, ally! If that doesnt satisfy ol' Pitch nothing will! I couldn't have said it better myself, and thank God u did as I am lacking the energy 2 even try 2 do so 2day...<pooped! >

Wow! Danlo and sky - you guys are amazing! I didn't think my comment would provoke such discussion! You above assertions are the reason I participate in this forum. Certainly no dummies here! Actually, I think all of us are right! LA has many facets of personality which I think we all hit on. Goodness knows that she has been through a great deal in her life to warrant such dimensions. But, like you said Sky, I don't think that that is necessarily a bad thing.

However, when reading TOT, LA does agonize over possessing TC throughout the book. Even with the Haruchi blaming her for what the Elohim did to TC, she doesn't possess him and take the ring. When she does bring him out of his silent stupor, that is not possession. That is healing (even though she sees it as "posession"). Now at that point she could have possessed him and taken his ring, but she didn't. The only time she truly possesses TC is in WGW when she broke free of the raver and tried to stop TC from giving LF the White Gold. Anyone of us might do the same thing! But even then, TC makes her back off with a simple look!

Granted, LA did choose a profession that has power over life! But its pretty obvious that she became a doctor to make up for and deal with what happened to her parents. I see her as someone who is too vulnerable to be truly comfortable with power. And I believe she has too much love for TC to hurt him. After all, he is probably the only other person she has loved, next to her parents. They screwed her up pretty good in that department!

Aliantha - you were right on the mark!

excellent summary danlo .. I really like the way you summised the LA psyche ..

I especially liked the perceived need in LA .. to atone for her past ..

and ofcourse you are right about LA caamora .. she wasnt power hungry per se .. I think she did fear power but occassionally it was a temptation to her also .. as it may well have been to any one ..

Im not sure about that statement about LA not being power hungry. She made numerous statements about wanting the ring, badly. But maybe not in a necessarliy bad way. The time LA got the ring in WGW was the perfect time for her to have it. If she had gotten it earlier, in TOT or TWL for instance, she mighta have made a catastrophic mistake due to lack of readiness. Correct me if Im wrong.

Caamora, you made one mistake about when LA brought TC out of his stupor. She doid not "possess" him that time. Certainly she went into him, but instead of trying to force him to do her will, she just accepted and allowed herself to fall deep into the well of silence that had been superimposed over his mind by the Elohim.

Torhm, I agree with you wholeheartedly. I apologize that it seemed that I was saying that LA possessed TC to bring him out of his stupor. That was not my intention. You put it better than I did! She did indeed fall into him as you stated. I believe I did state, however, that it was not possession, but, rather, healing.

bumping some of the better threads from days gone by--Auld Lang Syne